/Vf>^'^  ^^  ^^'^Oe 


THE   THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS 

OF  OXFORD  AND  THEIR 

MOVEMENTS 

JOHN  WYCLIFFE        JOHN  WESLEY 
JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO   •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •    SAN   FRANCISCO      - 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


THE  THREE  RELIGIOUS 

LEADERS  OF  OXFORD  AND 

THEIR  MOVEMENTS 

JOHN  WYCLIFFE        JOHN  WESLEY 
JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 


BY 
S.  »PARKES   CADMAN 


NeiD  gork 

THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

1916 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYBIOHT,    1916, 

By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  March,  1916. 


Norinool)  ]|Tes8 

J.  S.  Gushing-  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


TLO 


WALTER   COUTANT   HUMSTONE 

OF    BROOKLYN 

IN  TOKEN  OF  GRATITUDE  FOR  YEARS  ILLUMINATED 

BY    HIS    MANY    ACTS    OF    WISE    AND 

TENDER    FRIENDSHIP 

THIS    BOOK 

IS    RESPECTFULLY    DEDICATED 


PREFACE 

This  book  was  suggested  by  a  course  of  lectures  delivered 
under  the  auspices  of  The  Brooklyn  Institute  of  Arts  and 
Sciences  during  the  Lenten  season  of  1913.  It  has  since 
been  revised  with  some  care,  and  would  have  been  issued 
earlier  but  for  the  pressure  of  pastoral  and  public  duties. 
It  deals  with  three  great  Englishmen,  great  Christians, 
great  Churchmen,  and  loyal  sons  of  Oxford,  who,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  are  the  foremost  leaders  in  religious  life  and  activ- 
ity that  University  has  yet  given  to  the  world.  Many 
prophets,  priests,  and  kings  have  been  nourished  within 
her  borders,  but  none  who  in  significance  and  contribution 
to  the  general  welfare  compare  with  Wycliffe,  the  real 
originator  of  European  Protestantism;  Wesley,  the  Angli- 
can priest  who  became  the  founder  of  Methodism  and  one 
of  the  makers  of  modern  England  and  of  English-speaking 
nations ;  Newman,  the  spiritual  genius  of  his  century  who 
re-interpreted  Catholicism,  both  Anglican  and  Roman. 

Hence  I  have  named  the  volume  "  The  Three  Religious 
Leaders  of  Oxford  and  their  Movements,"  a  title  which 
appears  to  be  vindicated  by  the  facts  so  far  as  I  have 
been  able  to  ascertain  them.  It  will  probably  be  said 
that  I  omit  some  of  these  and  misconstrue  others.  This 
is  more  than  likely,  and  if  it  be  so,  I  must  be  held 
wholly  responsible.  I  can  only  plead  in  extenuation  that 
I  have  tried  to  be  as  disinterested  and  as  just  as  my  stand- 
point and  the  information  at  my  disposal  would  permit, 
and  that  throughout  I  have  sincerely  intended  to  give  an 
impetus  to  that  fraternal  spirit  which  leads  to  a  more 


Viii  PREFACE 

complete  apprehension  of  divine  truth.  I  shall  be  amply 
rewarded  if  those  who  have  any  sympathy  with  the  men 
and  the  movements  I  have  attempted  to  portray,  whether 
Roman  Catholics  or  Protestants,  are  drawn  more  closely 
together  in  the  bonds  of  a  common  faith  and  fellowship. 

My  thanks  are  due  and  are  here  respectfully  extended 
to  the  Reverend  Doctor  Herbert  B.  Workman,  Principal 
of  Westminster  College,  London,  who  used  his  unsurpassed 
knowledge  of  Wycliffe  and  of  Wesley  to  correct  the  first 
eight  chapters ;  to  my  colleague  at  Central  Church,  the 
Reverend  David  Loinaz,  for  his  constant  research  in  the 
subjects  discussed;  to  my  friends,  the  Reverend  Doctor 
W.  L.  Watkinson,  formerly  Editor  of  The  London  Quarterly 
Review^  the  Reverend  John  L.  Belford,  rector  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  of  the  Nativity,  Brooklyn,  and  the  Rev- 
erend Doctor  Joseph  Dunn  Burrell,  pastor  of  the  Classon 
Avenue  Presbyterian  Church,  in  the  same  borough,  for 
the  loan  of  valuable  volumes  and  documents  ;  to  Professor 
Edgar  A.  Hall,  of  Adelphi  College,  and  the  Reverend 
Charles  Waugh  for  their  fruitful  suggestions  and  verifi- 
cation of  quotations ;  and  to  the  Reverend  Oscar  L.  Joseph 
for  his  scholarly  assistance  and  preparation  of  the  Index. 

The  reader  is  asked  to  remember  that  the  lectures  were 
given  before  an  audience  composed  of  different  religious 
denominations,  and  this  circumstance  rendered  necessary 
explanations  and  details  which  otherwise  might  seem 
superfluous. 

S.   PARKES   CADMAN. 

Cektral  Congregational  Chuech, 

Brooklyn,  New  York  City, 

September  the  first,  1916. 


PROLOGUE 


Among  many  other  benefits  for  which  History  hath  been  honoured, 
in  this  one  it  triumpheth  over  all  human  knowledge,  that  it  hath  given 
us  life  in  our  understanding,  since  by  it  the  world  itself  had  life  and 
beginning,  even  to  this  day :  yea,  it  hath  triumphed  over  Time,  which 
besides  it  nothing  but  Eternity  hath  triumphed  over.  For  it  hath 
carried  our  knowledge  over  the  vast  and  devom-ing  space  of  so  many 
thousands  of  years  and  given  so  fair  and  piercing  eyes  to  our  mind,  that 
we  plainly  behold  living  now,  as  if  we  had  lived  then,  that  great  world, 
magni  Dei  sapiens  opus  —  'The  wise  world,'  saith  Hermes,  'of  a  great 
God '  —  as  it  was  then,  when  but  new  to  itself.  By  it,  I  say,  it  is  that 
we  live  in  the  very  time  when  it  was  created ;  we  behold  how  it  was 
governed ;  how  it  was  covered  with  water  and  again  re-peopled ;  how 
kings  and  kingdoms  have  flourished  and  fallen,  and  for  what  virtue  and 
piety  God  made  prosperous,  and  for  what  vice  and  deformity  He  made 
wretched,  both  the  one  and  the  other.  And  it  is  not  the  least  debt 
which  we  owe  unto  History,  that  it  hath  made  us  acquainted  with  our 
dead  ancestors,  and  out  of  the  depth  and  darkness  of  the  Earth  deliv- 
ered us  their  memory  and  fame.  In  a  word,  we  may  gather  out  of 
History  a  policy  no  less  wise  than  eternal,  by  the  comparison  and  appli- 
cation of  other  men's  aforepassed  miseries  with  our  own  like  errors  and 
ill-deservings.  —  From  the  Preface:   History  ;  Its  Rights  and  Dignity. 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh. 


PROLOGUE 

The  study  of  history  cannot  give  mathematical  certainty; 
yet,  rightly  pursued,  it  should  instill  the  serious  and  reverent 
temper  which  lessens  the  danger  of  partisan  blindness.  A 
sense  of  the  largeness  and  complexity  of  the  experiences  of 
the  past  is  an  aid  to  the  recovery  of  their  vital  phases.  The 
more  deeply  these  experiences  are  pondered,  the  more  com- 
pletely they  are  stripped  of  the  accidental  and  non-essential, 
the  more  clearly  manifest  becomes  their  fundamental  rela- 
tion to  the  process  of  human  development. 

Such  considerations  are  always  of  value,  but  never  more 
so  than  in  the  period  before  us.  For  during  the  medie- 
val epoch  Church  and  State  were  intimately  related,  and 
those  who  would  gain  a  just  apprehension  of  the  era  must 
endeavor  to   attain  the   state   of  that  practised   observer 

"...   whose  even-balanced  soul, 

From  first  youth  tested  up  to  extreme  old  age, 
Business  could  not  make  dull,  nor  passion  wild, 

Who  saw  life  steadily,  and  saw  it  whole." 

Again,  throughout  the  Middle  Ages  the  limitation  of  man's 
power  over  his  environment  is  everx'where  strikingly  ap- 
parent. Of  means  of  expression  for  aspiration  and  ideal 
there  was  no  lack,  but  any  practical  realization  was 
obstructed  by  the  difficulties  and  complications  imposed 
by  circumstances.  How  philosophical  theories  influenced 
statesmanship  and  politics,  how  their  seeming  triumphs 
so  often  ended  in  disaster,  and  what  qualities  either  in  them 
or  in  their  advocates  clothed  them  with  influence  and  insured 


XU        THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

permanent  benefits,  solidifying  government  and  people, 
the  career  of  Wycliffe  may  perhaps  serve  to  illustrate; 
for  the  Reformer  embodied  much  of  the  genius  of  medieval 
England.  The  attempt  to  reproduce  the  life  of  the  period 
is  materially  hampered,  however,  by  the  obscurity  of  per- 
spective in  which  many  lines  of  action  and  the  chief  per- 
sonalities of  the  age  are  alike  enveloped.  The  original 
authorities  upon  whom  historians  must  rely  for  informa- 
tion were,  as  a  rule,  advocates  of  some  particular  cause. 
They  knew  little  or  nothing  about  reducing  vexed  questions 
of  the  time  to  definite  limits,  nor  did  they  study  them  in 
the  light  of  their  initiatory  circumstances.  Swayed  by  con- 
temporary views,  they  seldom  subordinated  their  partisan 
proclivities  to  fairness  of  statement,  and  their  work  bears 
the  impress  of  the  passions  rather  than  of  the  intellect. 
Private  opinion  or  special  sympathy  biased  their  judgments, 
and  the  chroniclers  sought  in  their  records  to  vindicate  poli- 
cies and  individuals  agreeable  to  their  peculiar  persuasions. 
Where  one  group  could  find  nothing  but  the  beneficial, 
another  perceived  the  portents  of  grave  disaster.  Even 
the  best  among  them  did  not  recognize  the  superiority,  as  a 
historical  method,  of  close  observation  over  empty  argu- 
ment. Their  writings  ranged  from  the  grotesquely  imagina- 
tive, credulous  of  physical  prodigies  and  disdainful  of  facts, 
to  vapid  and  colorless  recitals  without  pith  or  meaning. 
Evidences  of  predetermination  were  rife  in  the  widely  differ- 
ing estimates  of  pontiffs,  princes,  prelates,  and  scholastics 
whose  careers  were  woven  into  the  tangle  of  current  contro- 
versies. And  the  well-poised,  many-sided  historian  who 
might  have  bequeathed  to  us  a  detached  and  comprehensive 
survey  of  the  ecclesiastical  events  around  which  medieval 
civilization  centered,  and  from  which  modern  ideas  were 
projected,  was  then  scarcely  a  possibility.  Eminent  scholars, 
however,  such  as  Freeman,  Stubbs,  Creighton,  Seeley,  and 
Lord  Acton,  have  recovered  the  gains  of  long  past  centuries 
and  have  enabled  us  to  understand  medieval  men  and  affairs, 


PROLOGUE  xiii 

not  only  when  they  were  swayed  by  unusual  circumstances, 
but  also  by  those  common  sentiments  which  influence  all 
ages  alike.  The  process  has  dwarfed  some  heroes  and 
robbed  some  events  of  a  spurious  greatness,  but  the  dis- 
illusionment was  as  necessary  as  it  was  wise. 

Ranke's  axiom,  which  he  himself  exemplified,  "simply 
to  find  out  how  things  occurred,"  requires  far  more  than  the 
perusal  of  ancient  manuscripts.  The  knowledge  of  the  main 
lines  of  history ;  of  the  motives  at  the  root  of  steadfast 
national  purposes;  of  constantly  interfering  factors  of  in- 
fluence; and  a  vivid  realization  of  the  continuity  of  the 
historical  process,  and  of  the  shaping  power  of  vigorous  per- 
sonality, are  prime  requisites  for  the  successful  interpreta- 
tion of  the  past.  Our  gratitude  is  due  to  the  historians  who 
have  conformed  to  these  principles ;  they  recall  the  Greek 
adage  that  truth  is  the  fellow-citizen  of  the  gods. 

It  was  a  notable  achievement  to  bridge  the  gulf  made  by 
the  Renaissance  between  the  Medieval  and  the  Modern  era. 
The  faith  and  laws,  the  ideals  and  practices,  the  conceits 
and  fancies  of  our  remoter  progenitors  still  appear  strange 
and  perplexing  to  the  unaccustomed  eye.  But  the  trained 
and  patient  interpretation  of  the  nineteenth  century  scholar 
has  brought  them  nearer  to  us,  moralized  the  entire  method 
of  research,  and  taught  us  to  moderate  alike  our  denuncia- 
tion and  our  eulogy.  The  occupants  of  that  era  confronted 
obstacles  too  great  for  their  resources  to  surmount.  The 
influx  of  a  larger,  freer  life  had  seriously  weakened  many 
venerable  customs  and  institutions,  and  while  these  slowly 
succumbed  the  reconstruction  of  the  social  fabric  was  de- 
layed by  treachery,  violence,  and  war.  Yet  even  in  this 
disdainful  passage  of  the  irresistible  tide,  preparatory  to 
impending  change,  the  prunal  elements  of  human  progress 
were  not  submerged.  Amid  the  chaos,  the  pretensions  of 
the  aristocracy  and  the  delusions  of  the  proletariat  were 
checked;  clericalism  measured  itself  against  the  rapacity 
and  pride  of  kings  and  barons;    municipalities  arose,  en- 


xiv       THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

riched  by  the  growth  of  trade,  the  magnates  of  which  some- 
tunes  thwarted  the  rulers  they  lavishly  entertained,  and 
for  whose  campaigns  they  were  financially  responsible. 
Guilds  of  artisans  and  tradesfolk,  unified  by  mutual  interest 
and  external  opposition,  flourished  in  the  chief  cities  of 
Europe.  When  clerics  were  recalcitrant,  or  where  mer- 
chants and  workmen  did  not  preponderate,  their  respective 
organizations  still  served  as  counteracting  forces,  and  their 
union  was  a  factor  monarchs  and  lords  were  compelled  to 
respect.  Feudalism  reluctantly  yielded  to  the  social  im- 
pact, while  the  disguise  of  chivalry  availed  it  less  and  less. 
Slaves  became  freemen,  freemen  became  burghers,  burghers 
acquired  a  firmer  hold  on  the  sources  of  national  revenue  and 
the  control  of  the  State.  Education  was  no  longer  a  clerical 
monopoly,. and  the  few  learned  laymen  who  had  then  secured 
recognition  were  pioneers  of  that  distribution  of  knowledge 
which  eventually  characterized  Humanism.  Justice  be- 
tween man  and  man  was  not  simply  exact  conformity  to 
preexistent  and  obligatory  law.  Legal  relations  were  sifted 
in  the  light  of  advancing  intelligence.  That  vague,  uncodi- 
fied borderland  which  is  now  called  social  justice,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  statutes  of  the  realm,  was  sufficiently 
defined  for  the  periodical  introduction  of  laws  which  in- 
corporated some  of  its  claims  and  validated  certain  personal 
and  property  rights.  The  baneful  dogma  which  assumed  a 
natural  servitude  for  the  vast  majority  became  politically 
inexpedient  among  the  bold  insurgents  who  threatened 
Richard  the  Second's  reign.  Foreign  intercourse  disturbed 
the  msularity  of  England ;  the  Crusades  brought  the  West 
face  to  face  with  the  East,  and  men  began  to  be  aware  of  the 
breadth  and  splendor  of  the  world.  The  nationalism  which 
arose  after  the  defeat  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  by  the 
Papacy  vanquished  in  its  turn  the  schemes  of  the  latter  for 
a  consolidated  Christendom.  No  country  gave  a  more 
generous  reception  to  the  new  consciousness  of  the  integrity 
of  the  State  than  did  England.     Her  geographical  situation 


PROLOGUE  XV 

and  the  temper  of  her  people  had  always  separated  her  from 
the  currents  of  continental  opinion,  and,  while  this  was  a 
loss  in  some  respects,  in  most  it  proved  a  decided  gain.  The 
stages  in  human  evolution  are  seldom  noted  until  they 
stand  out  in  the  bold  relief  of  a  crisis.  Their  occurrence  in 
the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  was  registered,  and 
their  changes  accomplished,  through  such  intermediaries 
as  St.  Francis,  Innocent  III,  Grosseteste,  Edward  I,  Wycliffe, 
and  other  great  personalities,  who  focused  and  intensified 
the  tendencies  of  their  day. 

These  observations  also  apply  to  the  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries.  John  Wesley  expressed  the  spiritual 
aspirations  and  transformed  the  character  of  his  age  more 
profoundly  and  permanently  than  did  any  other  contempo- 
rary Englishman.  Even  the  younger  Pitt,  who  defeated 
Napoleon  the  Great,  and  added  India  to  the  British  Empire, 
is  now  seen  to  have  been  inferior  in  lasting  influence  to  the 
apostolic  evangelist  who  revived  the  consciousness  of  a 
redeeming  God.  Newman  quickened  a  sense  of  ecclesiastical 
universalism  which  his  insular  countrymen  had  deemed 
obsolete.  He  linked  Anglican  to  continental  Christianity. 
This  achievement  has  largely  determined  for  the  past  sixty 
years  the  conceptions  of  the  Establishment  concerning  its 
ministerial  and  sacramental  eflSciency,  its  forms  of  worship, 
and  its  relations  with  other  Communions.  The  reader  will 
expand  for  himself  the  consequences  following  such  major 
events  as  the  American  Revolution,  the  French  Revolution, 
the  growth  in  politics  and  in  morals  of  those  plain  and  fun- 
damental principles  which  a  series  of  tragical  experiences 
discovered  to  be  the  basis  of  just  government.  The  ever- 
increasing  conviction  that  sovereignty  must  reside  with  the 
people  gave  rise  to  the  American  Republic,  regenerated 
France,  democratized  the  British  nation  and  its  colonies, 
and  still  strives  for  an  intelligent  formulation  in  other  coun- 
tries of  mankind.  Nor  were  these  later  centuries  deprived 
of  publicists  whose  passion  for  leadership  was  an  energetic 


xvi        THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

activity  both  for  good  and  evil.  The  interregnums  between 
Walpole  and  Gladstone,  Bolingbroke  and  Russell ;  between 
Louis  XIV  and  Napoleon  the  Great,  or  Washington  and 
Webster,  filled  as  they  are  with  prominent  personalities  and 
achievements,  can  be  surveyed  to-day  with  a  more  impartial 
eye.  Few,  if  any,  of  these  monarchs  and  statesmen  escaped 
"  the  contagion  of  the  world's  slow  stain."  At  the  same  time 
they  were  in  closest  fellowship  with  the  erring  millions  they 
led  in  peace  and  war.  And  if  some  among  them  sacrificed 
principle  to  power  and  ambition,  ever  and  anon  others  ap- 
peared who  redeemed  the  credit  of  the  race  and  showed  what 
could  be  effected  by  untrammeled  character  and  service. 


CONTENTS 


BOOK  I 

JOHN  WYCLIFFE   AND   LATER 
MEDIEVALISM 

OHA.PTEB 

I.     Heralds  of  Reform      .        .        , 
II.    Sources  of  Wycliffianism  . 

III.  The  Quarrel  with  the  Papacy 

IV.  Princes  and  People 
Epilogue  and  Bibliography 


3 
47 

81 
125 
165 


BOOK  II 

JOHN  WESLEY   AND   THE  EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURY 

V.     Ancestry  and  Training 175 

VI.    Darkness  and  Dawn 213 

VII.     Conflict  and  Victory 259 

Vin.    Consolidation  and  Expansion 311 

Epilogue.     Important  Dates.     Bibliography  .        .  365 

BOOK   III 
JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN   AND  THE   OXFORD 


MOVEMENT   OF   1833-1845 

IX.     The  Nineteenth  Century  Renaissance  . 
X.     Newman's  Development  and  Personality 
XI.    Tractarianism  and  its  Results 
Epilogue  and  Bibliography 


Index 


387 
433 
505 
572 

591 


BOOK  I 
JOHN  WYCLIFFE 

AND 

LATER  MEDIEVALISM 


Give  me  a  spirit  that  on  this  life's  rough  sea 
Loves  t'  have  his  sails  filled  with  a  lusty  wind, 
Even  till  his  sail-yards  tremble,  his  masts  crack, 
And  his  rapt  ship  run  on  her  side  so  low 
That  she  drinks  water,  and  her  keel  plows  air. 

George  Chapman  :    Tragedy  of  Charles, 
Duke  of  Byron.     Act  III,  Sc.  I. 


CHAPTER  I 
HERALDS  OF  REFORM 


Heaven  doth  with  us  as  we  with  torches  do. 

Not  light  them  for  ourselves;   for  if  our  virtues 

Did  not  go  forth  of  us,  't  were  all  alike 

As  if  we  had  them  not.     Spirits  are  not  finely  touch'd 

But  to  fine  issues,  nor  nature  never  lends 

The  smallest  scruple  of  her  excellence 

But,  like  a  thrifty  goddess,  she  determines 

Herself  the  glory  of  a  creditor, 

Both  thanks  and  use. 

Shakespeare  :  Measure  for  Measure.     Act  I,  Sc.  I. 


CHAPTER   I 

HERALDS   OF    REFORM 

Wycliffe's  place  in  history  —  His  protest  against  religious  and  polit- 
ical oppression  —  Sketch  of  development  of  Anglican  resistance  to 
Papal  claims  —  Hildebrand  —  His  conception  of  a  theocracy  —  Rela- 
tions with  William  the  Conqueror  —  Controversy  regarding  lay  inves- 
titure —  Henry  H  and  Becket  —  Constitutions  of  Clarendon  —  Becket's 
influence  on  his  countrymen  —  King  John  —  His  quarrel  with  Innocent 
HI  —  Papal  interdict  on  England  —  John's  excommunication  and  his 
abject  surrender  —  Great  Charter  —  Grosseteste  —  His  resistance  to 
Innocent  IV  —  Henry  de  Bracton  —  Simon  de  Montfort  —  Edward  I 

—  His  conflict  with  Boniface  VIII  —  The  development  of  English 
nationalism  under  his  rule  —  Contrast  between  13th  and  14th  cen- 
turies —  Period  of  Wycliffe's  birth  one  of  general  decadence  —  Birth- 
place of  the  Reformer  —  Early  years  —  Entrance  at  Oxford  —  Early 
history  of  Oxford  —  Origin  of  the  University  —  Medieval  meaning  of 
the  terms  "University"  and  "College"  —  Founding  of  English  college 
system  —  Walter  de  Merton  —  William  de  Wykeham  —  Physical 
characteristics  of  Medieval  Oxford  —  Conditions  of  living  —  Beneficent 
influence  of  College  Founders  —  Obscurity  of  Wycliffe's  Oxford  life  — 
The  "Nations" — Resources  of  Medieval  students  —  Laical  spirit  of 
the  Colleges  —  Their  freedom  from  class-distinctions  —  Wycliffe  as  the 
Master  of  Balliol  —  Election  to  benefices  —  Obtains  degree  in  theology 

—  His  position  as  a  scholar. 


The  paramount  interest  of  Wycliffe's  work  as  a  reformer 
centers  in  his  courageous  stand  for  religious  and  political 
freedom  during  the  quarrel  between  the  English  government 
and  the  Papacy.  This  recurrent  conflict  had  its  sordid  and 
repulsive  phases,  which  were  relieved  by  the  devotion  of  the 
few  who,  concentrating  their  energies  on  the  principles  in- 
volved, gave  the  dispute  a  moral   significance,  and   largely 

5 


6     THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

determined  the  outcome.  A  brief  resume  of  the  points  at 
issue  in  this  protracted  strife  is  in  place  here. 

The  origin  of  the  struggle  is  traceable  to  the  extravagant 
claims  of  the  Holy  See  and  the  characteristically  independent 
spirit  of  the  Anglican  Church.  This  age-long  rivalry  explains 
the  powerful  yet  ineffective  protest  of  Wycliffe,  and  also  the 
later  revolt  under  Henry  VHI,  which,  unjustified  as  it  was  in 
some  respects,  met  a  national  demand  and  culminated  in 
an  English  Reformation.  The  degree  of  liberty  enjoyed 
from  the  beginning  by  the  English  hierarchy  should  not  be 
exaggerated,  for  there  was  a  connection  with  the  Papacy 
which  served  distinct  purposes  and  was  neither  feebly  nor 
thoughtlessly  established.  Nothing  is  gained  by  trying  to 
prove  that  the  relationship  never  existed,  any  more  than  by 
disregarding  the  substantial  reasons  for  its  severance. 

Hildebrand,  who  gave  a  definite  enunciation  to  the  Papal 
claims,  was  elevated  to  the  throne  of  St.  Peter  in  1073  and 
assumed  the  title  of  Gregory  VH.  As  an  ecclesiastic  he  was 
at  once  philosophical  and  practical,  large-minded  enough  to 
conceive  or  revive  far-reaching  policies,  and  possessed  of  a 
penetrative  knowledge  of  mankind  and  a  prophetic  under- 
standing of  the  spirit  of  his  age.  The  purity  of  his  personal 
life,  the  strength  of  his  character,  and  the  force  of  his  will 
cooperated  with  his  zeal  for  service  to  make  him  a  born  leader 
of  men.  Before  his  lofty  vision  arose  the  stupendous  ideal 
of  a  theocratic  State,  embracing  the  entire  world,  over  which, 
as  God's  Vicegerent,  he  asserted  his  sovereignty.  Civil  or 
religious  rulers  might  not  question  the  prerogatives  of  his 
oflSce,  since  they  were  conferred  by  the  Deity  Himself,  to 
Whom  alone  the  Pontiff  was  responsible.  Far  from  being 
content  to  leave  these  august  designs  in  the  realm  of  remote 
theory,  Hildebrand  strove  to  make  them  actual,  and  to  bring 
them  into  closest  touch  with  those  days  of  violent  disruption 
and  constant  change.  No  man  could  have  been  selected  as 
the  Vicar  of  Christ  who  was  better  fitted  by  nature  and  cir- 
cumstances to  act  for  the  cause  with  which  his  name  is  asso- 


JOHN  WYCLIFFE  7 

ciated.  Sagacious  and  ardent,  he  knew  how  to  conform  to 
the  immemorial  traditions  of  the  Papacy,  and  also  how  to 
stamp  upon  its  fabric  and  diplomacy  the  impress  of  his  com- 
manding nature.  Although  he  failed  in  certain  directions, 
he  nevertheless  succeeded  in  investing  the  Holy  See  with  a 
spiritual  influence  which  overawed  and  yet  in  a  measure 
cemented  the  continental  nationalities.  He  accomplished 
by  the  subtle  suggestions  and  definite  claims  of  sacerdotal 
authority  a  task  which  armed  hosts  would  have  found  im- 
possible. But  the  defects  latent  in  Hildebrand's  statecraft 
began  to  appear  even  during  his  own  administration,  and 
increased  in  after  times.  He  could  not  induce  England  to 
bow  to  his  spiritual  autocracy  :  then  as  now  she  was  sheltered 
by  that  splendid  isolation  which  has  always  guarded  her 
from  continental  ecclesiasticism.  The  inherent  sense  of 
freedom  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  people  cherished  survived 
even  the  Norman  Conquest  and  prevented  the  feudal  system 
from  taking  deep  root  on  English  soil. 

Hildebrand  knew  that  Englishmen  would  not  willingly 
permit  the  imposition  upon  them  of  any  system,  however 
impressive  in  its  scope  and  purpose,  which  jeopardized  their 
national  autonomy ;  and  in  the  hope  of  counteracting  this 
sentiment  he  had  advised  his  predecessor,  Alexander  H,  to 
bestow  his  blessing  upon  the  expedition  of  the  Duke  of 
Normandy  in  1066.  The  desires  of  the  two  ecclesiastics  were 
frustrated  by  the  Conqueror  himself,  who  so  quickly  ab- 
sorbed the  leaven  of  his  new  realm  that  when  the  three 
legates  were  despatched  from  Rome  by  the  Pope  to  demand 
homage  from  the  king  for  his  new  island  dominion,  they  met 
with  the  severe  rebuff,  —  "  Homage  to  thee  I  have  not 
chosen,  nor  do  I  choose  to  do.  I  never  made  a  promise  to 
that  effect,  nor  do  I  find  that  it  was  ever  performed  by  my 
predecessors  to  thine."  The  Norman  bishops  who  were 
appointed  to  English  sees  were  careful  to  adopt  their  mon- 
arch's policy.  The  Primates  of  Canterbury  and  York  had 
always  been  supreme  in  their  archiepiscopates,  and  there 


8  THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OP  OXFORD 

were  no  indications  in  the  tenor  of  previous  Papal  decrees  or 
edicts  that  the  Pope  claimed  the  right  of  overlordship. 
Thus  sustained  by  precedent,  the  civil  power,  both  before 
and  after  the  Conquest,  retained  certain  rights  in  England 
which  it  did  not  possess  in  Germany.  It  should  be  added, 
however,  that  the  Anglican  Church  was  far  from  being 
locally  independent,  and  that  no  one  was  more  anxious  than 
the  Conqueror  to  bring  it  into  touch  with  continental 
Catholicism. 

Hildebrand  resorted  to  other  measures:  in  1075  a  bull 
was  issued  denying  to  the  laity  the  right  of  investiture 
for  churches ;  three  years  later  investitures  were  pronounced 
invalid  when  thus  bestowed,  and  the  penalty  of  excommuni- 
cation was  passed  upon  those  disobeying  the  edict.  Lay 
investiture  originated  when  bishops  and  abbots  became 
temporal  lords  and  bestowed  upon  laymen  extensive  church 
properties  in  return  for  military  service.  Ecclesiastical 
office  was  then  held  to  be  of  the  nature  of  a  fief  for  which 
homage  was  due  to  the  king.  If  a  Chapter's  choice  of  its 
bishop  or  abbot  was  displeasing  to  the  monarch,  he  could 
refuse  to  ratify  the  election,  whereupon  during  the  interval 
the  income  of  the  benefice  reverted  to  the  Crown.  William 
Rufus,  the  unscrupulous  son  and  successor  of  the  Conqueror, 
was  a  notorious  transgressor  in  this  respect.  He  kept  the 
see  of  Canterbury  vacant  four  years  that  he  might  appro- 
priate its  emoluments.  In  a  fit  of  remorse,  due  to  his  fear 
of  death,  he  nominated  to  the  Primacy  the  saintly  and 
learned  Anselm,  abbot  of  Bee  in  Normandy,  a  thinker,  a 
sensitive  pietist  of  the  character  which  Englishmen  seldom 
appreciate  sympathetically,  but  one  who,  to  quote  the  phrase 
of  Ronsard,  "had  traveled  far  on  the  green  path  that  leads 
men  into  remembrance."  Upon  the  king's  recovery  from 
sickness  his  compunction  vanished,  and  he  resumed  an  open 
and  shameless  barter  of  spiritual  dignities.  Anselm's  gentle 
and  sincere  nature  was  not  devoid  of  sterner  qualities :  he 
opposed  the  despotism  of  Rufus,  and  defended  not  only  the 


JOHN  WYCLIFFE  9 

clerical  order,  but  also  the  imperiled  rights  of  the  subject. 
Finding  it  unsafe  to  remain  in  residence,  the  Archbishop 
appealed  in  person  to  Pope  Urban  II.  It  was  during  his 
absence  from  Canterbury  that  the  prelate,  who  was  pre- 
dominantly the  quiet  scholar,  found  leisure  to  write  his 
celebrated  treatise,  "Cur  Deus  Homo."  After  the  death 
of  Rufus,  he  refused  to  do  homage  to  Henry  I,  or  receive 
investiture  at  his  hands.  Pope  Paschal  II  sanctioned  the 
Primate's  action,  and  eventually  a  compromise  was  effected. 
After  the  vexed  reign  of  Stephen,  during  which  the  armies 
of  the  bishops  fought  against  those  of  the  king,  the  next 
open  breach  with  the  Papacy  occurred  under  Henry  II. 
The  clergy  now  demanded  trial  in  their  own  courts,  which, 
in  accordance  with  the  unwise  legislation  enacted  at  the 
Conquest,  were  separated  from  the  regular  jurisdiction.  The 
flagrant  partiality  of  the  clerical  judiciary,  its  frequent  mis- 
carriages of  justice,  and  the  number  and  influence  of  those 
tonsured  miscreants  who  were  thus  exempt  from  the  common 
law,  constituted  a  grave  menace  to  peace  and  order  by  making 
the  sacerdotal  office  a  haven  for  criminals.  The  higher 
clergy  surrounded  themselves  with  retinues  of  armed  re- 
tainers, among  whom  were  warrior  priests  and  not  a  few  of 
the  baser  sort.  In  the  ranks  of  the  lower  clergy  were 
numerous  rascals  who  had  escaped  punishment  for  offenses  of 
which  they  were  palpably  guilty.  While  the  controversy 
was  at  its  height  Henry  bestowed  the  archbishopric  upon  his 
chancellor,  Thomas  a  Becket,  succinctly  described  by  Wil- 
liam of  Newburgh  as  one  "burning  with  zeal  for  justice, 
but  whether  altogether  according  to  wisdom,  God  knows." 
Becket  at  once  became  the  champion  of  the  extreme  clerical 
party,  and  his  sturdy  resistance  of  Henry's  efforts  to  subdue 
it  strained  their  friendship  to  the  breaking  point.  In 
January,  1164,  a  Great  Council  was  convened  at  Clarendon, 
near  Salisbury,  to  reduce  the  friction  between  Church  and 
State.  The  resolutions  then  framed,  and  subsequently 
placed  upon  the  statute-book,  were  termed  the  "Constitu- 


10    THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OP  OXFORD 

tions  of  Clarendon."  They  provided  that  accused  clerics, 
when  condemned  and  degraded  by  their  own  courts,  should 
be  transferred  to  the  King's  court  to  receive  sentence ;  to 
which  Becket  properly  objected  that  this  would  be  trying  a 
man  twice  for  the  same  offense.  Civil  cases  involving 
their  members  were  to  be  adjusted  before  the  ordinary 
tribunals.  The  clergy  were  forbidden  to  leave  the  country 
without  the  monarch's  consent,  neither  could  appeals  be 
taken  to  Rome  without  the  royal  license.  The  agreement 
concerning  investiture,  under  the  terms  of  which  the  Pope 
allowed  bishops  and  abbots  to  do  homage  to  the  king  for 
their  temporal  properties,  was  confirmed.  After  repeated 
quibblings  and  equivocations  Becket  gave  a  reluctant  assent 
to  these  changes,  and  then,  speedily  repentant,  refused  to 
affix  his  official  seal.  Pope  Alexander  III  encouraged  the 
Archbishop's  refractory  attitude,  and  Becket  fled  to  France 
in  November,  1164,  to  escape  Henry's  anger.  There  he 
remained  six  years  in  exile.  Upon  his  return  to  Canterbury 
the  townsfolk  went  in  procession  to  meet  him  outside  the 
city,  and  escorted  him  in  triumph  to  his  church. 

The  jubilations  were  scarcely  ended  before  the  smoulder- 
ing fires  broke  out  again,  only  to  be  quenched  by  the  as- 
sassination of  the  fearless  prelate  in  one  of  the  chapels  of  the 
Cathedral.  The  crime  excited  universal  horror  and  execra- 
tion :  the  four  knights  whose  ferocious  daring  in  the  king's 
service  prompted  the  murder  had  absolutely  ruined  their 
master's  projects.  Henry  quailed  before  the  storm  of  in- 
dignation which  swept  over  Europe;  he  submitted  to  the 
Papal  decrees,  annulled  the  Constitutions  of  Clarendon, 
and  made  an  open  expiation  in  his  dolorous  pilgrimage  to 
Becket's  tomb.  The  popular  admiration  which  had  followed 
Becket  during  his  later  life  was  due  to  his  courageous  deter- 
mination and  steadfast  zeal  for  what  he  held  to  be  justice 
against  king  and  barons.  Nothing  could  have  enhanced 
that  admiration  more  than  the  manner  of  his  ending.  No 
Englishman  of  the  Middle  Ages  made  so  indelible  an  im- 


JOHN    WYCLIFFE  11 

pression  on  his  countrymen  as  did  Thomas  of  Canterbury. 
It  has  been  well  said  that  if  Anselm  was  a  saint  whose  supe- 
riority to  ordinary  motives  made  him  a  statesman,  Becket 
was  a  statesman  whose  political  audacity  was  transformed 
by  the  popular  imagination  into  sainthood. 

II 

A  deeper  humiliation  awaited  the  Crown  in  the  reign 
of  the  second  Henry's  son  John,  whose  folly  and  wickedness 
plunged  the  nation  into  turbulence  and  dishonor.  After 
the  death  of  Archbishop  Hubert  Walter,  which  occurred  on 
July  12,  1205,  a  dispute  arose  between  the  king  and  the 
Chapter  of  the  see  in  reference  to  Walter's  successor.  The 
younger  monks  met  in  haste  before  the  deceased  Primate 
was  buried,  and  without  applying  for  the  royal  warrant 
elected  their  sub-prior  Reginald.  They  even  went  so  far 
as  to  install  him,  and  then  secretly  dispatched  him  to  Rome 
to  obtain  the  Papal  confirmation.  During  his  passage 
through  Flanders,  Reginald  violated  the  confidence  of  his 
brethren  by  publicly  announcing  himself  as  the  Archbishop- 
elect.  In  the  ensuing  tumult  the  king  nominated  John  de 
Grey,  Bishop  of  Norwich,  the  bishops  and  the  older  monks  of 
the  Chapter  acquiescing,  and  a  second  deputation  at  once 
set  out  for  the  Vatican  to  push  the  claims  of  the  king's 
candidate. 

The  Pontiff,  Innocent  III,  was  a  consummate  administra- 
tor, in  counsel  wary,  in  fidelity  to  his  office  impregnable,  and 
an  unflinching  advocate  of  absolutism  as  enunciated  by 
Hildebrand.  "Regal  dignity,"  said  Innocent,  "should  be 
but  a  reflection  of  the  Papal  authority  and  entirely  sub- 
ordinate to  it."  He  was  not  prone  to  deceive  himself,  and 
he  was  not  liable  to  be  deceived  by  others.  His  fame  has 
been  clouded  by  the  contention  that  he  originated  the 
Inquisition,  and  it  is  beyond  question  that  he  gave  impetus 
to  the  extirpation  of  heresy  by  physical  violence,  deeming 


12    THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

it  high  treason  against  Heaven.  The  Livonians  and  the 
Albigenses  felt  the  weight  of  his  hand ;  the  continental 
rulers  bent  before  his  inflexible  sway,  and  he  was  more  than 
a  match  for  the  irresolute  and  demoralized  John. 

During  the  week  before  Christmas,  1206,  the  rivals  for 
the  archbishopric  were  heard  at  the  Papal  court,  where  the 
king's  duplicity  precipitated  his  defeat.  While  openly 
protesting  that  the  Pontiff's  decision  would  be  acceptable 
to  all,  he  attempted  to  bribe  the  oflficials  of  the  Curia,  and 
enjoined  the  monks  whom  he  had  commissioned  to  elect 
no  one  but  Grey.  The  futility  of  such  double  dealing  was 
demonstrated  in  this  negotiation  with  the  astute  Innocent, 
who  could  neither  be  cajoled  nor  affrighted  by  it.  The 
election  of  Reginald  was  quashed  as  informal,  that  of  Bishop 
de  Grey  was  pronounced  illegal  on  the  ground  that  it  occurred 
while  the  appeal  was  pending ;  ^  and  Cardinal  Stephen 
Langton,  an  Englishman  by  birth,  and  the  first  scholar  in 
the  foremost  university  of  Europe,  was  named  by  Innocent 
for  the  see.  The  representatives  of  the  Chapter  concurred, 
regardless  of  their  secret  pact  with  John,  and  accordingly 
Langton  was  chosen.  It  is  beyond  reasonable  doubt  that 
Innocent  was  aware  of  the  treachery  of  the  English  monarch, 
and  he  seems  to  have  been  sincerely  solicitous  that  the  throne 
of  Augustine  should  be  filled  by  a  man  of  Langton's  worth 
and  caliber.  He  proceeded  cautiously  and  declined  to 
complete  the  election  by  consecrating  Langton  until  the  king 
had  given  his  approval.  This  John  emphatically  refused  to 
bestow,  and,  notwithstanding  his  previous  professions  of 
admiration  for  the  Archbishop,  he  now  complained  that  he 
did  not  even  know  the  obscure  person  who  was  being  thrust 
upon  him.  At  this  unblushing  prevarication,  the  Pope  took 
the  initiative  and  consecrated  his  nominee,  whereupon  the 
fury  of  the  reckless  king  fell  upon  the  monks  who  had  dared 
to  disobey  his  mandate.     Innocent  countered  his  assaults 

>  Bishop  William  Stubbs :  "Historical  Introduction  to  the  Rolls  Series"  ; 
pp.  467-468. 


JOHN    WYCLIFFE  13 

with  an  impressive  manifestation  of  the  Papal  authority 
which  recalled  that  made  by  Hildebrand  at  Canossa.  In 
the  spring  of  1208,  the  realm  was  suddenly  deprived  of  its 
religious  instruction  and  ministry,  and  those  holy  oflBces 
of  faith  and  consolation  which  were  believed  necessary  to 
eternal  salvation  were  simultaneously  withdrawn.  This 
stupendous  sentence,  a  formidable  but  also  self-destruc- 
tive weapon  of  the  medieval  Church,  filled  the  heart  of  the 
nation  with  grief  and  dismay.  What  effect  it  had  on  the 
king  can  only  be  conjectured ;  at  any  rate  he  offered  Lang- 
ton  the  royalties  of  his  see  and  gave  him  permission  to  visit 
England.  But  overtures  for  peace  were  at  an  end  by  the 
time  the  Archbishop  arrived  at  Dover;  the  bishops  fled 
the  country,  the  parochial  clergy  were  outlawed  from  their 
charges,  and  the  monasteries  and  nunneries  were  brought 
to  the  verge  of  starvation.  The  Papal  interdict  prevailed 
until  1212,  and  John  took  advantage  of  the  general  distress 
by  appropriating  ecclesiastical  benefices  and  funds  to  his 
own  use.  Finally  the  Pope  excommunicated  him,  and 
when  he  retaliated  with  renewed  defiances  and  plunderings, 
Innocent  declared  his  deposition  from  the  throne.  Con- 
temporary accounts  of  the  calamitous  struggle  assert  that  a 
prophecy  of  Peter  of  Wakefield  played  upon  the  king's  su- 
perstitions and  ended  his  resistance.  However  that  may  have 
been,  it  suddenly  collapsed,  and  on  May  15, 1213,  he  made  an 
abject  and  total  surrender  in  which  he  ceded  the  kingdoms  of 
England  and  Ireland  in  perpetuity  to  Innocent  and  his 
successors,  agreeing  to  hold  them  in  fief  from  the  Pope  at 
an  annual  tribute  of  one  thousand  marks.  By  this  act 
John  endeavored  to  enlist  the  Holy  See  against  the  baronage, 
which  was  restive  beneath  the  consequences  of  his  misrule. 
Innocent  insisted  upon  a  guarantee  of  good  behavior  from 
the  king,  and  in  the  final  adjustment  many  significant 
constitutional  changes  were  effected.  But  the  people  re- 
fused to  place  their  confidence  in  a  monarch  who  had 
dissipated  every  resource  of  loyalty  and  respect,  and  when 


14        THREE    RELIGIOUS    LEADERS    OF    OXFORD 

the  barons  brought  him  to  bay  at  Runnymede  they  compelled 
him  to  sign  the  Great  Charter,  which  was  the  chief  token 
and  instrument  of  the  growing  national  consciousness. 

The  shortcomings  and  disasters  of  John's  malignant 
policy  stimulated  England's  resolution  to  avoid  such 
contingencies  in  the  future.  For  although  the  prelates  and 
lords  acted  in  the  place  of  the  people,  they  did  so  in  a  rep- 
resentative capacity  and  to  a  certain  extent  with  their 
consent  and  allegiance.  The  Charter  long  remained  valu- 
able for  what  it  promised  rather  than  for  what  it  actually 
performed  ;  since  those  who  drafted  and  signed  it  were  either 
unable  or  unwilling  to  enforce  its  articles.  Yet  its  presence 
in  the  political  life  and  history  of  the  realm  was  a  gain 
which  neglect  obscured  but  could  not  destroy.  After  eighty 
years  of  comparatively  inoperative  existence,  one  of  the 
greatest  epochs,  the  thirteenth  century,  which  produced 
Dante,  St.  Francis,  St.  Louis,  and  the  first  Edward,  witnessed 
its  vitalization  under  the  prince  last  named,  a  king  as  faith- 
ful as  John  was  perfidious.  Its  provisions  were  incorporated 
into  the  principles  of  his  government,  promoting  that  har- 
mony and  justice  which  were  its  steadfast  bulwark. 

The  reign  of  John  brought  about  the  consimimation  of 
Papal  supremacy  in  England,  the  kingdom  being  formally 
annexed  as  a  province  of  the  spiritual  empire,  whose  capital 
was  the  Vatican  and  whose  disposer  was  the  Pope.  Reform 
within  the  Church  was  impossible  so  long  as  it  was  con- 
trolled by  the  Curia,  and  Englishmen  composed  themselves 
to  make  the  best  of  a  situation  to  which  they  were  far  from 
being  reconciled.  The  Charter  with  which  Stephen  Lang- 
ton  had  been  largely  identified  made  no  mention  of  Papal 
suzerainty.  The  implicit  alliance  between  the  throne  and 
the  clergy  was  severed  for  a  long  period,  and  notwithstand- 
ing the  backset  due  to  John's  reprehensible  conduct,  in- 
dependency reasserted  itself,  not  only  in  secular  affairs 
but  also  in  the  more  personal  and  religious  life  of  the 
nation. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  15 


III 

It  was  a  tribute  to  the  unquestioned  heroism  and  pic- 
turesqueness  of  Becket's  hfe  that  Stephen  Langton  should 
have  been  proud  to  reckon  him  among  the  fathers  of 
Enghsh  Hberty.  Both  Archbishops  resented  foreign  in- 
tervention, and  when  Matthew  Paris  sought  to  make 
Langton  a  national  saint  he  based  his  biography  on  the 
model  of  Thomas,  maintaining  that  the  two  were  representa- 
tives of  the  kingdom  of  England.  Langton's  importance 
is  further  shown  by  the  fact  that  he  was  the  connecting 
link  between  Becket  and  Edmund  Rich  and  Robert  Grosse- 
teste.  Rich  was  far  removed,  however,  in  the  mildness 
and  simplicity  of  his  temper  from  the  haughty  and  im- 
perious Becket.  The  Saint  of  Abingdon  was  better  fitted 
for  the  cloister  than  for  the  archiepiscopal  throne,  and, 
while  his  writings  were  full  of  spiritual  insight  and  charm, 
he  was  incapable  of  accurate  estimate  or  vigorous  action  in 
reference  to  men  and  affairs.  Although  as  Archbishop  he 
was  unable  to  arrest  the  laxity  and  intrigue  of  the  day,  the 
affection  of  his  intimate  friends  led  to  his  canonization 
within  seven  years  from  his  death.^ 

Robert  Grosseteste,  Chancellor^  of  Oxford  University, 
and  afterwards  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  equaled  Becket  in  firmness 
and  surpassed  him  in  wisdom.  His  vast  diocese  included 
the  present  sees  of  Lincoln,  Peterborough,  Oxford,  and  part 
of  Ely,  and  his  administration  affords  an  outstanding  proof 
of  human  capacity,  not  only  with  respect  to  the  conduct 
of  the  business  of  his  bishopric  but  also  to  its  manifold  re- 
lations with  the  Roman  Curia  and  the  Church  at  large. 
Wycliffe,  chary  of  his  praise,  gave  it  to  Grosseteste  without 

1  W.  H.  Hutton:   "The  English  Saints"  ;   p.  266. 

2  The  reader  should  not  identify  the  university  chancellorship  of  that 
period  with  the  office  of  the  same  name  at  the  present  time.  As  Bishop  of 
Lincoln  in  which  diocese  Oxford  was,  Grosseteste  was  of  course  the  eccle- 
siastical head  of  the  University  ;  the  title  of  '  Chancellor'  would  not  be  given 
to  him,  however,  but  to  his  representative  at  Oxford. 


16        THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS    OF    OXFORD 

stint.  The  versatility  of  his  gifts  and  the  extent  of  their 
exercise  made  him  the  most  alert  and  universal  intelligence 
in  Britain.  Among  many  appellations  applied  to  him  which 
indicated  the  admiration  and  love  of  his  contemporaries 
were  "The  Lord  Robert,"  "Robert  of  Lincoln,"  "Lin- 
colniensis,"  "St.  Robert,"  and  "that  great  clerk  Grosse- 
teste."  Roger  Bacon  averred  he  was  the  only  man  living 
who  was  in  possession  of  all  sciences,  and  had  his  warning 
been  heeded,  the  University  might  have  been  diverted  from 
its  profitless  plowing  of  the  sands  of  later  Scholasticism. 
He  composed  French  verse,  was  well  informed  in  law  and 
medicine,  and  wrote  with  authority  upon  a  wide  range  of 
subjects.  His  knowledge  of  Hebrew  has  been  disputed; 
but  the  translations  from  his  Greek  manuscripts  made  by 
John  of  Basingstoke  and  Nicholas  the  Greek  are  not  ques- 
tioned, and  show  that  Grosseteste  was  proficient  in  this 
language.  None  could  deny  his  large  and  varied  learning, 
his  surpassing  intellectual  capacities,  his  consecration  to 
duty,  or  his  immense  working  powers.  These  endowments 
and  attainments  were  evinced  in  his  supremacy  as  a  bishop,  a 
theologian,  and  a  preacher.  He  strove  to  harmonize  the 
respective  truths  of  natural  and  revealed  realities,  and  urged 
his  pupils  and  clergy  to  study  physical  science  in  addition 
to  the  sacred  literatures  in  their  original  tongues.  The 
vibrant  energies  he  imparted  thrilled  his  diocese  and  were 
felt  throughout  the  land.  But  the  crowning  proof  of  his 
superiority  w^as  the  fact  that  his  intellectual  and  moral 
growth  continued  to  the  last.  Every  year  found  him  more 
necessary  to  Church  and  State  than  before.  So  deserved 
was  his  reputation  for  determining  the  essence  of  vexed  ques- 
tions that  those  who  were  divided  on  many  other  matters 
were  a  unit  in  their  reliance  upon  his  arbitration.  For  his 
exposition  and  defense  of  public  rights,  for  his  fearless  pro- 
tests against  foreign  tyrannies,  whether  temporal  or  clerical, 
for  his  disinterested  patriotism,  he  was  venerated  by  his 
countrymen.     His  occasional  indiscretions,  which  were  due 


JOHN    WYCLIFFE  17 

to  defects  of  temperament  and  incurred  merited  rebuke, 
were  not  sufficiently  grave  to  mar  his  work  or  limit  his  adapta- 
bility and  usefulness  ;  and  an  acquaintance  with  his  achieve- 
ments is  indispensable  for  those  who  w^ould  understand  the 
religious  development  of  his  age  in  the  direction  of  freedom 
and  of  self-control. 

Previously  to  1247,  Grosseteste  had  either  favored  or 
submitted  to  the  ecclesiastical  claims  for  which  Becket 
died.  This  policy  cannot  be  rightly  judged  by  those  for 
whom  the  Holy  See  is  a  standing  conspiracy  against  the 
liberties  of  mankind  or  by  those  for  whom  it  is  always  and 
everywhere  an  infallible  organization  for  the  regeneration 
and  moral  control  of  the  world.  An  unprejudiced  criticism 
will  recognize  even  more  clearly  than  the  plenitude  of 
partisan  erudition  that  the  weight  of  testimony  is  against 
these  extreme  opinions.  Rome's  authority,  although  far 
from  perfect  or  desirable  in  every  case,  was  not  actuated 
solely  by  selfish  motives,  nor  was  it  always  inimical  to  the 
welfare  of  medieval  society.  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison's  trib- 
ute to  Innocent  HI  is  applicable  to  other  Pontiffs :  "  His 
eighteen  years  of  rule  from  1198  to  1216  were  one  long 
effort,  for  the  moment  successful,  and  in  part  deserving 
success,  to  enforce  on  the  kings  and  peoples  of  Europe  a 
higher  morality,  respect  for  the  spiritual  mission  of  the 
Church,  and  a  sense  of  their  common  civilization.  We  feel 
that  he  is  a  truly  great  man  with  a  noble  cause."  ^  The 
Papacy's  better  side  will  appear  again  in  these  pages; 
nevertheless,  when  the  supremacy  it  claimed  came  into 
conflict  with  the  spirit  of  awakened  nationalism,  it  encoun- 
tered an  opposition  so  formidable  that  it  was  driven 
to  the  devious  courses  of  an  intriguing  diplomacy  which 
it  has  since  pursued.  Without  debating  whether  Hil- 
debrand  or  Wycliffe  was  correct  in  his  interpretation  of 
the  Divine  presence  in  human  affairs,  we  may  agree  to 
so  much  as  this:    that  where  absolutism  once  reigned  it 

*  "The  Meaning,  of  History"  ;    p.  150. 


18        THREE    RELIGIOUS    LEADERS    OF    OXFORD 

reigns  no  longer,  and  that  the  decentrahzation  of  its  former 
powers  is  the  present  result  of  an  extended  and  arduous 
experience. 

When  in  1250  the  Crown  and  the  Papacy  again  cooperated 
for  the  subjugation  of  the  English  clergy,  Grosseteste 
condemned  the  alliance,  and  even  contemplated  resigning 
his  see.  But  his  love  for  the  Church  prevailed,  and  he 
continued  his  labors  in  extirpating  abuses  and  promoting 
reforms.  His  loyalty  to  Rome  never  recovered  from  the 
shock  it  then  sustained,  and  he  openly  denounced  the 
financial  expedients  which  Innocent  IV  adopted  to  defray 
the  cost  of  his  campaign  against  the  Emperor.  It  was  this 
Pontiff  who  demanded  of  Grosseteste  a  prebend  at  Lincoln 
for  his  nephew,  Frederick  De  Lavagna,  an  Italian  who  could 
not  speak  English.  The  Bishop's  famous  reply,  later  known 
as  the  Sharp  Epistle,  is  a  valuable  document  for  the 
study  of  the  tendency  of  Anglicanism  at  this  period.^  He 
said,  "  It  will  be  known  to  your  wisdom  that  I  am  ready  to 
obey  apostolical  commands  with  filial  affection  and  with 
all  devotion  and  reverence,  but  to  those  things  which  are 
opposed  to  apostolical  commands,  I  in  my  zeal  for  the 
honor  of  my  parent,  am  also  opposed.  By  apostolical 
commands  are  meant  those  which  are  agreeable  to  the 
teachings  of  the  Apostles  and  of  Christ  Himself,  the  Lord 
and  Master  of  the  Apostles,  whose  type  and  representation 
is  specially  borne  in  the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy  by  the  Pope. 
The  letter  above  mentioned  is  not  consonant  with  apostolical 
sanctity,  but  .utterly  at  variance  and  discord  with  it." 
Innocent  was  so  enraged  by  this  bold  unprecedented  censure 
from  one  whom  he  regarded  as  a  renegade,  that  his  Cardinals 
had  difficulty  in  dissuading  him  from  pronouncing  excom- 
munication upon  the  most  beloved  bishop  in  Europe.  The 
members    of    the    Curia,    notwithstanding    the    fact    that 

1  The  Sharp  Epistle  was  not  written  to  Pope  Innocent,  but  to  Master 
Innocent,  the  Papal  Legate  in  England,  a  fact  which  alters  the  whole  drift 
of  the  document. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  19 

Grosseteste  had  blamed  them  for  the  oppressions  he  de- 
nounced, participated  in  the  veneration  freely  offered  to  the 
aged  and  saintly  churchman  of  spotless  integrity,  and 
besought  Innocent  to  let  him  end  in  peace.  His  enemies 
had  not  long  to  wait ;  on  October  9,  1253,  he  passed  to  a 
well-earned  rest.  "The  Church,"  said  the  dying  man, 
"will  not  be  free  from  her  Egyptian  bondage  except  at  the 
point  of  the  blood-stained  sword."  His  valiant  affirmation 
of  the  apostolic  rule  against  those  who  sought  to  degrade 
it  had  ended  in  a  seeming  failure  which  saddened  his  last 
hours.  Actually  it  played  a  considerable  part  in  destroying 
the  evil  she  mourned,  and  went  far  to  fulfill  Adam  Marsh's 
enthusiastic  prediction  that  "it  should,  by  the  aid  of  God, 
benefit  all  ages  to  come." 

The  ideas  and  aims  of  Grosseteste  were  further  developed 
in  the  writings  of  his  friend  Henry  de  Bracton,  the  well- 
known  authority  on  English  common  law,  who  in  his  cele- 
brated work  carefully  defined  the  always  sensitive  relations 
between  Church  and  State.  He  treated  clerical  claims  to 
patronage  as  an  unwarrantable  interference  destructive  of 
the  regularity  and  equity  of  the  civil  power  and  administra- 
tion. Decidedly  national  in  temper  and  reasonable  in  state- 
ment, Bracton's  argument  was  an  additional  example  of 
the  nature  of  the  opposition  to  Papal  supremacy. 

Another  friend  and  junior  contemporary  of  the  Bishop 
of  Lincoln  was  Simon  de  Montfort,  Earl  of  Leicester,  the 
leading  member  of  the  oligarchic  party  during  the  Barons' 
War.  He  was  regarded  by  the  populace  ^  as  a  saint  and 
martyr  and  was  eulogized  as  such  by  the  Scottish  chronicler 
of  Melrose,  whose  comparison  between  him  and  Simon 
Peter,  the  prince  of  the  Apostles,  was  probably  traceable 
to  the  monk's  animosity  against  Edward  I,  for  whose 
career  that  of  de  Montfort  served  as  a  heroical  but  tragic 
prelude.  His  father,  Simon  de  Montfort  the  elder,  was 
noted  for  a  crusade  of  persecution  against  the  Albigenses. 

1  See  Wright's  "Political  Songs  of  the  Middle  Ages"  in  the  Rolls  Series. 


20        THREE    RELIGIOUS    LEADERS    OF    OXFORD 

The  son,  born  in  France  about  the  year  1200,  succeeded  to 
the  earldom  of  Leicester  in  1231,  and  his  marriage  in  1238 
aUied  him  with  the  royal  family.  Jealousies  and  intrigues  on 
the  part  of  many  of  the  nobiUty  caused  a  breach  between 
him  and  the  king,  and  for  a  time  drove  him  out  of  England. 
On  his  return  and  reconcihation  with  Henry  in  1241,  however, 
the  barons,  who  had  hitherto  regarded  him  as  a  foreign 
interloper,  joined  him  in  his  opposition  to  monarchical 
misrule.  In  a  song  which  commemorated  his  victory  at 
Lewes  in  the  year  before  his  death  the  Earl  was  hailed  as  the 
deliverer  of  the  Church  and  the  avenger  of  her  wrongs,  while 
the  king's  responsibility  for  his  own  acts  and  his  liability 
to  correction  were  also  proclaimed.  This  was  a  partisan 
tribute,  but  the  fact  that  Simon  became  famous  among  Eng- 
lish patriots  and  was  a  hearty  supporter  of  Grosseteste's 
ecclesiastical  reforms  is  established  by  his  action  in  signing 
the  protest  of  1246  against  the  exactions  of  Rome.  He  was 
a  practised  warrior,  a  man  of  ascetical  temperament  and 
religious  spirit,  who  championed  the  lower  clergy  and  the 
commonalty,  sought  to  abolish  arbitrary  procedure,  and  to 
promote  government  upon  laws  framed  by  the  representa- 
tives of  the  people.  In  1264  Henry  the  Third's  hostility 
to  these  changes  provoked  a  rebellion  which  issued  in  the 
battle  of  Lewes,  when  Simon  vanquished  and  captured  the 
king  and  his  sons.  Prince  Edward  and  Richard  of  Cornwall. 
He  utilized  his  advantage  to  establish  a  triumvirate  of 
which  he  was  the  head,  and  the  Council  which  he  summoned 
in  1265  succeeded  to  some  extent  in  controlling  public 
affairs.  This  legislative  body  may  be  looked  upon  as  the 
germ  of  the  modern  British  Parliament,  and,  notwith- 
standing repressions  and  retroactions,  since  Simon's  day 
England's  government  has  never  lacked  a  constantly 
increasing  element  of  popular  representation.  When  the 
natural  reaction  set  in  he  was  accused  of  having  designs 
upon  the  throne,  and  Edward,  the  young  heir  apparent, 
marched  against  him   with  an  army  which  Simon  himself 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  21 

» had  trained  in  military  strategy.  "  By  the  arm  of  St. 
James!"  he  exclaimed,  with  a  touch  of  soldierly  pride,  as 
he  watched  the  advance  of  the  royalist  forces  at  Evesham 
on  August  4, 1265,  "they  come  on  in  wise  fashion,  but  it  was 
from  me  they  learned  it."  He  knew  that  the  die  was  cast 
against  him,  and,  commending  his  soul  to  God,  fell  fighting 
to  the  last. 

The  prince  who  redeemed  the  credit  of  his  House  in  war 
renounced  its  favorite  policy  when  the  victory  was  won. 
Edward  I  discarded  for  the  time  being  the  Papal  alliance 
upon  which  his  Plantagenet  predecessors  had  relied,  and 
showed  himself  capable  of  appropriating  the  best  ideas  of 
his  age.  Far  from  abolishing  representative  assemblies, 
he  saw  in  them  the  means  of  securing  the  stability  of  his 
throne  and  the  welfare  of  his  subjects.  These  objects  he 
made  his  own,  despite  the  embarrassments  of  his  position, 
the  exigencies  of  national  defense,  and  the  necessary  re- 
construction which  followed  the  distractions  of  civil  con- 
flict. He  chose  in  word  and  deed  to  be  king  of  England, 
and  the  choice  brought  him  honor  and  renown.  His  wise 
and  zealous  maintenance  of  law  and  order  have  earned  for 
him  the  title  of  the  Justinian  of  the  Empire.  He  made 
that  resistance  to  Papal  interference  with  the  affairs  of  the 
realm  which  was  a  salient  characteristic  of  its  best  statesmen 
and  rulers.  In  1297  he  gave  his  confirmation  to  the  Charter, 
which  had  previously  been  neglected  or  openly  violated, 
and  its  articles  were  applied  with  a  firmness  of  faith  and 
an  intellectual  lucidity  that  caused  his  reign  to  become  a 
fountain  of  justice  and  equity,  the  currents  of  which  continue 
their  course  into  the  present  age.  Boniface  VIII  tried  out 
the  issue  when  in  1296  he  promulgated  the  bull  "Clericis 
Laicos"  ^  which  forbade  the  taxation  of  ecclesiastics  except 
by  consent  of  the  Holy  See.  Edward  promptly  retaliated 
by  depriving  the  clergy  of  legal  protection,  arguing  that  if 

iFor  a  translation  of  the  Bxill  "Clericis  Laicos,"  see  E.  F.  Henderson: 
"Select  Historical  Documents  of  the  Middle  Ages."     (Bohn)  pp.  432-434. 


22    THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

they  would  not  contribute  to  the  national  exchequer  they 
could  not  expect  to  share  the  benefits  of  the  commonwealth. 
The  clergy  themselves  were  in  sympathy  with  this  position, 
and  Boniface  temporarily  gave  way  only  to  reassert  his 
authority  in  the  case  of  Edward's  relations  to  the  throne 
of  Scotland.  The  reply  of  the  English  Parliament  to  the 
Pope's  letter  indicated  the  extent  to  which  the  nation  re- 
sented ecclesiastical  supervision  of  its  civil  matters ;  it 
announced  that  the  monarchs  were  not,  and  never  had  been, 
answerable  for  their  political  acts  to  any  judge  but  their 
conscience  and  their  people.  Thus,  at  last,  under  Edward's 
directing  hand,  England  converted  into  stepping-stones  the 
obstacles  placed  in  the  path  of  her  progress,  and  before  the 
end  of  his  reign  became  a  united  nation.  Although  the 
king  was  harsh  and  domineering,  he  cherished  a  warm  affec- 
tion for  his  subjects,  who  responded  in  kind.  He  revived 
and  applied  the  useful  measures  he  found  in  abeyance  with 
a  sense  of  honor  and  of  fairness  and  an  earnest  desire  to  ad- 
vance every  legitimate  interest.  In  this  he  succeeded,  and 
his  unique  place  in  the  history  of  England  is  attributable 
to  that  success.  He  reduced  and  incorporated  Wales ;  and, 
had  he  lived  and  succeeded  in  the  conquest  and  settlement 
of  Scotland  and  Ireland,  the  three  kingdoms  might  have 
escaped  centuries  of  turmoil  and  misery.  But  the  racial 
barriers  between  the  peoples  were  too  strong  to  be  shattered 
even  by  his  terrific  impact  and  it  was  left  for  after  ages  to 
complete  his  designs  of  consolidation  and  expansion.  He  was 
fortunate  in  that  he  escaped  the  toils  of  the  French  wars, 
which  enmeshed  the  administration  of  his  grandson,  the  third 
Edward.  He  created  a  national  parliament,  a  national 
system  of  justice  and  of  taxation,  and  a  national  army.  The 
years  from  1272  to  1290  were  more  fruitful  in  historic  leg- 
islation than  any  other  period  of  English  history  before  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  for  these  laws  Edward  supplied  the 
initiative.  He  was  in  truth  a  great  monarch,  second  to 
none  in  the  long  array  of  those  who  have  occupied  the  throne 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  23 

of  the  kingdom  wherein  he  stimulated  the  development 
of  that  constitutional  procedure  and  respect  for  precedent 
which  have  made  modern  Britain  an  example  of  practical 
wisdom  and  justice  among  the  governments  of  mankind. 

The  disastrous  career  of  Edward  II  terminated  in  the 
tragedy  of  his  assassination  at  Berkeley  Castle  on  September 
21,  1327.  His  name  is  associated  with  famine,  conspiracy, 
tumult,  civil  war,  and  the  decisive  English  defeat  at  Bannock- 
burn.  Yet  the  Court  which  surrounded  this  weak,  self- 
willed  and  frivolous  monarch  was  a  solidly  organized  insti- 
tution, with  traditions  and  resources  of  government  that 
enabled  it  to  direct  every  department  of  the  State.  Pro- 
fessor Tout  argues  with  considerable  force  against  the 
popular  estimate  of  the  second  Edward's  reign,  and  attrib- 
utes its  earlier  failure  to  the  policy  of  his  father,  which 
was  on  the  verge  of  collapse  at  the  moment  of  the  great 
king's  death. ^  The  reasons  for  this  statement  are  given  in 
some  detail  and  afford  room  for  thought.  On  the  surface, 
however,  there  was  a  wide  and  sobering  contrast  between 
the  two  reigns  which  indicated  the  change  then  sweeping 
over  Christendom. 

IV 

The  new  spirit  arose  with  the  transfer  of  the  Papal 
seat  to  Avignon  in  1309,  an  event  which  destroyed  the 
absolutism  Hildebrand  had  elaborated,  and  which  his 
successors,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Innocent  III, 
were  unable  to  maintain.  The  thirteenth  century  had 
been  one  of  buoyancy,  enthusiasm,  and  promise,  rich 
in  the  number  and  character  of  its  leaders,  and  mem- 
orable for  their  achievements  in  religion,  philosophy, 
statesmanship,  and  art.  Pulsating  with  conscious  mental 
vigor,  animated  by  high  hopes  and  rejoicing  in  widened 
horizons  of  experience  and  reflection,   rulers  and  peoples 

>  "The  Place  of  the  Reign  of  Edward  II  in  English  History." 


24        THREE    RELIGIOUS    LEADERS    OF   OXFORD 

received  with  gladness  the  stimulus  of  the  mission  of  the 
friars  to  European  Christianity.  The  colloquial  speech  and 
homespun  wit  of  the  Franciscans  rescued  the  faith  from  an 
esoteric  seclusion  and  communicated  its  joys  and  inspira- 
tions to  the  daily  life  of  the  multitude.  In  England  they 
were  more  learned  than  the  Dominicans,  who  hardly  counted 
there,  though  they  exercised  a  profound  influence  in  con- 
tinental Europe.  Many  schools  and  universities  were  then 
founded,  in  addition  to  those  already  existing,  and  a  keen 
zest  for  the  conquests  of  the  mind  was  everywhere  mani- 
fested. But  the  golden  epoch  passed  into  eclipse  with 
dramatic  suddenness;  a  strange  apathy  fell  upon  these 
short-lived  energies;  a  fatal  prosperity  divorced  the  friars 
from  their  self-abnegation  and  from  the  plain  folk,  and 
diverted  their  zeal  into  material  and  selfish  channels.  It 
should  be  added,  however,  that  during  the  Black  Death  in 
1348,^  they  showed  by  their  devoted  service  that  an  un- 
paralleled calamity  could  recall  them  to  the  spiritual  signifi- 
cance of  their  order.  Nor  were  they  responsible  for  the 
moral  fatigue  which  was  a  universal  distemper,  paralyzing 
individual  and  collective  efforts  for  betterment.  Humanity 
in  general  was  daunted  by  the  melancholy  retreat  of  cour- 
age and  optimism,  and  refused  any  longer  to  follow  the 
path  over  which  shone  "  the  high  white  star  of  truth."  What 
had  seemed  to  men  the  dawn  of  a  new  day  proved  to  be  a 
false  light,  as  evanescent  as  the  pale  radiance  which  gleams 
across  the  northern  skies. 

In  this  gloomy  environment  of  negation  and  disappoint- 
ment, due  to  exhaustion  rather  than  design,  John  Wycliffe 
appeared  as  one  born  out  of  due  time.  The  exact  place  and 
date  of  the  Reformer's  birth  are  uncertain.  The  antiquary 
Leland  states  that  he  "drew  his  origin"  from  Wycliffe-on- 
Tees,  a  locality  celebrated  by  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  "Rokeby," 
and  in  another  passage  he  says,  "John  Wycliffe,  Hereticus, 

1  The  year  1349  is  usually  given  as  the  date  of  the  Black  Death,  though  it 
actually  began  in  1348. 


JOHN    WYCLIFFE  25 

was  born  at  Ipreswel,  a  small  village  a  good  mile  off  from 
Richmont."  Neither  is  there  now,  nor  was  there  ever,  a 
place  of  this  name  in  the  vicinity  of  Richmond.  The  mis- 
take is  due  to  a  misprint  in  Hearne's  printed  copy  of  Leland's 
"  Itinerary."  Ipswell,  the  modern  name  for  Ipreswel,  is  at 
least  ten  miles  from  Richmond,  which  even  Leland  could 
hardly  call  a  good  mile,  and  the  reference  shows  that  he  is 
recording  gossip.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Wycliffe 
was  born  at  Wycliffe-on-Tees,  where  the  tomb  of  his  father 
Roger,  the  lord  of  the  manor,  may  still  be  seen.  The  year 
1320  is  the  earliest  that  can  be  assigned  for  his  birth,^  and 
he  may  have  been  born  several  years  later.  The  differences 
need  not  detain  the  narrative :  it  is  at  least  certain  that  he 
was  a  Yorkshireman,  and  possessed  the  independence  and 
resolution  native  to  that  province.  Little  enough  is  known 
concerning  the  earlier  stages  of  his  career  and  some  of  its 
subsequent  periods  are  equally  vague.  The  last  decade  of 
his  life  is,  however,  an  exception,  for  there  his  processes  as 
a  thinker  and  a  theologian  can  be  traced  with  much  greater 
certainty  than  elsewhere,  owing  to  the  clearness  and  full- 
ness of  our  knowledge  of  the  closing  phase.  But  centuries 
of  neglect  have  obscured  the  external  conditions  of  the  man 
to  whom  Shirley  refers  as  a  "dim  image  which  looks  down 
like  the  portrait  of  the  first  of  a  long  line  of  kings,  without 
personality  or  expression."  ^ 

It  is  perhaps  useless  to  speculate  upon  the  circumstances 
and  influences  which  shaped  his  formative  period,  although 
they  are  not  without  considerable  interest.  He  received 
the  impressions  of  a  static  community,  whose  lonely  exist- 
ence was  undisturbed  by  the  echoes  of  the  city's  crowded 
ways.  This  seclusion  had  compensations :  it  afforded  him 
opportunity  for  the  cultivation  of  sterling  worth,  candor, 

1  According  to  the  genealogical  tree  in  Whitaker's  "Richmondshire," 
Roger  Wycliffe  and  his  wife  Catherine  were  married  in  1319.  The  eldest 
son  would  seem  to  have  been  William  Wycliffe,  who,  however,  was  dead 
before  1362. 

^H.  B.  Workman:    "The  Dawn  of  the  Reformation"  ;    Vol.  I,  p.  107. 


26         THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

and  integrity  ;  virtues  which,  as  a  rule,  are  better  inculcated 
in  rustic  retreats  than  in  the  centers  of  population.  The 
yeomanry  of  the  Yorkshire  Ridings  have  retained  under  all 
changes  certain  refreshing  qualities,  a  goodly  heritage  from 
their  progenitors.  Their  provincial  speech,  energy,  deter- 
mination, prudence,  courage,  and  hatred  of  any  form  of 
injustice  stamp  them  as  a  peculiar  people,  whose  temper 
has  never  been  disposed  to  indulge  the  arrogance  of 
caste.  A  better  passport  to  their  favor  is  that  assertive  in- 
dividualism which,  however  distasteful  to  the  assumptions 
of  arbitrary  rank,  and  even  injurious  in  some  directions, 
has  hitherto  been  the  sustaining  source  of  democracy.  In 
this  respect  Wycliffe  was  a  true  son  of  the  North,  blunt  and 
incisive  in  address,  with  an  unconscious  equality  of  manner, 
and  a  passionate  sympathy  for  the  unfortunate  and  the  poor 
which  inspired  his  disconcerting  fierceness  of  attack  upon 
their  oppressors.  That  such  an  advocate  of  the  cause  of 
the  proletariat  in  religion  and  in  politics  should  have  emerged 
from  the  remotest  dales  of  a  shire,  at  that  period  rude  and 
unvisited,  is  another  of  the  many  vouchers  for  the  debt  the 
race  owes  the  wilderness  and  its  children. 

Living  as  he  did  in  so  retired  a  spot,  Wy cliff e's  early 
instruction  was  probably  received  from  the  village  priest, 
who  usually  dwelt  with  the  manorial  family  and  taught 
the  rudiments  of  Latin,  rhetoric,  dialectics,  arithmetic,  and 
geometry.  The  conjecture  that  he  was  educated  at  a 
monastery  school  cannot  be  substantiated,  since  these  in- 
stitutions no  longer  opened  their  doors  to  outsiders.  Nor 
is  there  any  evidence  that  he  attended  one  of  the  schools 
maintained  by  collegiate  churches,  by  chantry  priests,  and 
by  the  guilds  of  various  towns. 

Lechler  surmises  that  he  was  fourteen  or  possibly  sixteen 
years  old  when  he  entered  Oxford.  That  some  students 
were  no  older  is  evident  from  the  conunent  of  Richard 
Fitzralph,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  who  complained  that 
many  youths  under  fourteen  years  of  age  were  already  con- 


JOHN  WYCLIFFE  27 

sidered  members  of  the  University.  Lechler's  reckoning  is 
based  upon  1320  as  the  year  of  Wy cliff e's  birth,  but  if 
this  date  is  too  early,  the  surmise  is  incorrect.  It  is  highly 
probable  that  he  was  still  in  his  nonage  when  he  began 
the  southward  journey  along  the  great  Roman  road  which 
ran  from  the  Cheviot  Hills  to  London  and  passed  near  his 
father's  house.  He  would  not  lack  for  company  :  students, 
like  other  wayfarers,  banded  together  for  mutual  protection 
against  lusty  rogues  and  outlaws  who  infested  the  high- 
ways, and  sometimes  robbed  them  of  their  baggage  and 
entrance  fees  even  in  sight  of  their  destination.  After 
ten  days  of  more  or  less  excitement  and  peril,  the  intrenched 
and  walled  fourteenth  century  town,  with  its  encircling  waters 
and  massive  Norman  keep  commanding  the  approaches 
which  converged  from  the  surrounding  hills,  would  be  in  full 
view. 


Oxford  is  situated  in  the  middle  reaches  of  the  Thames 
valley,  and  shares  that  beautiful  pastoral  scenery  for  which 
the  river  is  noted  from  Richmond  to  Sonning  Bridge.  The 
ruins  of  its  ancient  fortifications  remain  to  show  its 
former  strategical  importance,  and  its  venerable  appear- 
ance is  enhanced  by  the  gray  fronts  of  halls  and  colleges 
along  "the  High"  and  other  thoroughfares.  But  the 
thriving  borough  did  not  arise,  as  many  have  imagined,  in 
response  to  the  needs  of  the  colleges;  the  place  enjoyed 
five  hundred  years  of  municipal  and  commercial  prominence 
before  any  student  was  seen  in  its  streets.  Equally  erroneous 
are  the  popular  beliefs  regarding  the  beginnings  of  the 
University  itself.  That  the  great  seat  of  learning  had  its 
inception  in  one  of  the  schools  established  by  Alfred  the 
Great  is  only  another  of  the  many  legends  which  historical 
research  has  compelled  antiquaries  to  relinquish.  Nor 
did  the  fame  of  churches  and  monasteries  of  Oxford  have 
anything  to  do  with  the  origin  of  those  schools  which  were 


28        THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS    OF   OXFORD 

afterwards  merged  into  the  University.  It  is  far  nearer 
the  truth  to  say  that  Oxford's  classical  reputation  was  an 
outgrowth  of  its  geographical  location  and  civic  strength. 
The  earliest  mention  on  which  reliance  can  be  placed  refers 
to  the  nunnery  founded  by  St.  Frideswide  during  the  turmoil 
of  the  eighth  century,  on  or  near  the  site  of  the  present 
Cathedral.  A  brief  entry  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  for 
912  states  that  Edward  the  Elder,  the  successor  of  Alfred, 
"took  possession  of  London  and  Oxenford  and  of  all  the  lands 
which  owed  obedience  thereto."  ^  The  ravages  of  the  Danish 
wars  afterwards  fell  heavily  upon  the  town,  which  was  then 
a  frontier  fortress  of  the  Mercian  and  West  Saxon  kingdoms, 
and  involved  it  in  burning  and  destruction.  The  citizens 
repaired  the  mischief  wrought  by  fire  and  siege  in  979,  1002, 
and  1010,  and  subsequently  Oxford  continued  to  be  a 
theater  of  national  gatherings. 

The  security  of  tenure  which  followed  the  Norman  Con- 
quest promoted  the  town's  growth  and  trade,  and  trans- 
formed the  architecture  of  its  religious  and  public  buildings. 
In  1074  the  collegiate  church  of  St.  George  arose  within  the 
recently  constructed  castle ;  the  priory,  afterwards  called 
the  Abbey  of  Austin  Canons,  was  erected  in  the  next  cen- 
tury ;  the  palace  of  Beaumont  was  built  by  Henry  I  in  the 
fields  to  the  north.  The  church  of  the  monastery  of  St. 
Frideswide,  which  at  the  Reformation  became  the  Cathedral 
of  the  new  diocese,  dates  from  the  same  period,  and  these 
indefatigable  masons  also  renovated  the  existing  parish 
churches.  One  of  the  wealthiest  of  English  Jewries  was 
planted  in  the  center  of  the  town :  a  settlement  having  its 
own  religion,  language,  dress,  laws,  customs,  and  commerce, 
independent  of  local  authorities  and  subject  only  to  the 
Crown.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Oxford's  general  progress 
was  promoted  by  the  financial  loans  of  wealthy  Hebrews, 
and  that  indirectly  its  academic  methods  felt  the  influence 
of  their  rabbis,  whose  volumes  aided  the  first  researches  of 

1  James  Parker  :  "The  Early  History  of  Oxford "  ;  p.  116. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  29 

physical  scientists  and  gave  Roger  Bacon  access  to  the  older 
world  of  material  inquiry.^ 

While  it  is  not  our  immediate  purpose  to  deal  at  length 
with  the  interesting  details  of  those  educational  facilities 
which  were  mainly  due  to  the  faith  and  energy  of  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  they  should  receive 
the  consideration  commensurate  with  their  importance. 
Their  larger  beginnings  have  been  ascribed  to  a  migra- 
tion of  scholars  from  Paris,  which  took  place  about  the 
year  1169.  Such  migrations  were  perfectly  congruous  with 
the  nomadic  habits  of  medieval  clerks,  and  those  universities 
in  Northern  Europe  which  did  not  arise  in  connection  with 
some  prominent  collegiate  church  were  the  offspring  of  a 
similar  exodus.  The  history  of  the  University  of  Paris  has 
emerged  from  the  uncritical  period  when  the  foundation 
was  attributed  to  Charles  the  Great,  although  his  fame  as 
a  founder  is  still  celebrated  thoughout  the  colleges  of  France 
by  an  annual  festival  named  in  his  honor.^  What  the 
Emperor  actually  did  was  to  establish  collegiate  schools  in 
the  municipalities  of  his  dominions,*  and  of  these  the  "  Ecole 
du  Parvis  Notre  Dame"  eventually  won  a  high  reputation, 
surpassing  its  rivals  at  Chartres  and  Laon.  With  the 
widening  of  intellectual  activity  the  curriculum  broadened, 
while  the  growth  of  culture  and  the  decay  of  monasticism 
increased  the  demand  for  new  sources  of  education  and  for 
the  better  training  of  the  secular  clergy.  During  the 
eleventh  century  learned  theologians  taught  there  and  also 
at  the  adjacent  school  of  St.  Genevieve,  among  them  being 
Gerbert,  afterward  Pope  Sylvester  II,  Fulbert,  and  Be- 
ranger  of  Tours.  But  to  the  brilliant  pupil  of  William  of 
Champeaux,  Abailard,   and  to  the  successors  he  trained, 

1  John  Richard  Green:   "Oxford  Studies"  ;   p.  9. 

*  This  new  lord  of  the  world  was  not  a  Frenchman,  but  a  German,  a  fact 
which  the  French  appellation  Charlemagne  has  frequently  obscured. 

'  He  designed  to  have  collegiate  churches  in  which  the  clergy  should  live 
together  with  one  of  their  number,  called  the  Chancellor,  responsible  for 
education.     Hence  arose  the  title  of  Chancellor  in  universities. 


30        THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS    OF   OXFORD 

men  who  "grew  straight  in  the  strength  of  his  spirit," 
Paris  owed  her  academic  prestige,  and  the  natural  evolution 
of  the  University  out  of  her  schools.  Abailard,  at  that  time 
a  lawman,  commenced  a  school  of  his  own  near  to  that  of 
St.  Genevieve,  where  not  less  than  five  thousand  scholars 
are  said  to  have  attended  his  lectures.^  His  youth  and 
genius,  illimitable  lore,  and  audacity  were  assets  of  a  magnetic 
personality  which  drew  to  itself  many  future  dignitaries  of 
the  Church,  including  a  pontiff,  nineteen  cardinals,  and  fifty 
bishops ;  within  a  short  period  after  his  death  the  University 
became  the  Mecca  of  European  students,  scholars,  and  doc- 
tors.^ Again,  Abailard's  prominence  fifty  years  after  the 
death  of  Anselm,  the  greatest  of  monastic  teachers,  showed 
that  higher  education  had  escaped  the  control  of  the  regular 
clergy,  and  that  their  essential  selfishness  was  gradually 
driving  it  to  seek  other  leaders.  Moreover,  the  conflict 
between  the  claims  of  reason  and  those  of  faith,  which  was 
always  imminent,  was  precipitated  by  the  fears  of  the  clergy 
that  in  his  efforts  to  unify  all  knowledge  Abailard  would 
minimize  the  importance  of  theology.  He  finally  became 
a  Benedictine  in  1119,  but  this  did  not  save  him  from  con- 
demnation by  the  Church. 

In  1201  Philip  Augustus,  who  reigned  from  1180  to  1223, 
and  was  in  many  respects  the  reincarnation  of  the  far-seeing 
spirit  of  Charles  the  Great,  gave  the  schools  exemption  from 
civil  jurisdiction.  Masters  and  scholars  were  placed  under 
the  control  of  ecclesiastical  tribunals.  In  1212,  when  the 
Chancellor,  as  the  Bishop's  representative,  sought  to  compel 
all  masters  to  take  an  oath  of  obedience  to  himself.  Innocent 
III  interposed,  defeated  the  scheme  of  the  local  hierarchy 
to  control  the  schools,  and  forbade  the  oath.     During  the 

1  Medieval  statistics  should  be  received  warily.  Wycliffe,  for  instance, 
states  that  there  were  thirty  thousand  scholars  at  Oxford,  when  its  popula- 
tion was  not  quite  five  thousand. 

*  The  Isle  de  Cit6  never  was  the  center  of  University  life  ;  St.  Genevieve 
was  the  place  where  the  University  grew,  and  became  the  rival  of  the  School 
of  Notre  Dame. 


JOHN  WYCLIFFE  31 

carnival  of  1229  a  riot  arose  in  a  Paris  tavern,  like  unto 
the  quarrel  which  began  the  "Great  Slaughter"  at  Oxford 
in  1354,  whereupon  the  police  of  the  provost  savagely  sup- 
pressed the  students,  leaving  several  of  their  number  dead. 
The  masters  demanded  redress  for  the  outrage,  and,  failing 
to  obtain  it,  dissolved  the  University  for  six  years  and  re- 
tired with  their  scholars  to  Oxford,  Cambridge,  and  Angers. 
Eventually  Gregory  IX  exercised  his  good  offices,  the  court 
and  the  municipal  authorities  promptly  assisted  him,  and 
in  1231  the  University  returned  to  Paris,  confirmed  in  its 
former  charter  and  with  the  grant  of  additional  exemptions. 
It  was  finally  incorporated  by  St.  Louis,  who  succeeded  to 
the  throne  in  1226. 

Among  the  distinguished  foreigners  who  visited  or  studied 
at  Paris  were  John  of  Salisbury,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  Roger 
Bacon,  Raymond  Lully,  and  Stephen  Langton.  Dante  is 
reputed  to  have  attended  lectures  there  in  1309,  Petrarch 
boasted  of  the  crown  the  University  proffered  him,  and,  as 
late  as  the  sixteenth  century,  Tasso  came  to  the  schools  of 
France,  Normandy,  Picardy,  and  Germany,  situated  in  the 
Rue  du  Fouarre.  At  the  center  of  the  city  stood  then,  as 
it  now  stands,  Notre  Dame,  the  spiritual  citadel  of  the 
capital.  The  Sainte  Chapelle,  inclosed  by  the  ancient  palace 
of  the  kings,  arose  hard  by,  the  most  definite,  delicate,  and 
graceful  monument  of  French  Gothic  architecture.  The  area 
extending  from  the  south  bank  of  the  Seine  up  Mont  St. 
Genevieve  had  been  surrendered  to  the  expanding  schools. 
From  the  hill  of  the  patron  saint  its  buildings,  gardens, 
and  open  spaces  sloped  steeply  down  past  the  ruined  resi- 
dence of  the  Roman  emperors  to  the  river  and  the  Isle  de  la 
Cite. 

At  the  height  of  its  power  and  throughout  the  Middle 
Ages,  this  place  was  the  intellectual  center  of  Christendom, 
as  Rome  was  its  political  and  ecclesiastical  metropolis.  The 
University  practically  dictated  the  theology  of  the  Church, 
and  even  the  Popes  were  careful  about  controversy  with 


32         THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

the  doctors  of  Paris  concerning  dogmatic  statements.  It 
was  more  completely  cosmopolitan  than  any  modern  seat 
of  learning ;  scholars  from  all  parts  of  Europe  repaired 
there  for  instruction  from  its  gifted  teachers,  and,  since 
those  who  came  could,  and  doubtless  did,  return  in  great 
numbers  to  their  respective  homes,  there  is  no  difficulty  in 
accepting  the  statement  that  a  body  of  English  students 
left  Paris  and  built  up  a  studium  at  Oxford  when  recalled 
by  their  monarch,  Henry  II,  during  his  dispute  with  the 
French  king.  Again,  the  presence  in  Oxford  of  such  teachers 
as  the  legist  Vacarius,  Thibaut  d'Estampes,  and  Robert 
Pullein,  which  anticipated  this  incursion,  had  served  to 
raise  the  city's  reputation.  Vacarius  visited  it  during  the 
reign  of  Stephen:  he  lectured  there  in  1149,  and  prepared 
a  compendium  in  nine  books  of  the  Digest  and  Code  of 
Justinian.  When  the  king  ordered  him  to  desist  from 
lecturing,  Vacarius  is  said  to  have  been  rewarded  with  a 
prebend  in  the  church  of  secular  canons  at  Southwell.^ 

Beyond  the  events  narrated,  the  causes  which  operated 
to  make  the  already  ancient  town  the  seat  of  the  second 
university  in  Europe  are  far  from  obvious.  For  some  time 
after  the  exodus  from  Paris  it  was  naturally  overshadowed 
by  that  seat  of  learning  of  which  it  was  the  offspring,  and 
which  played  a  noble  part  in  European  civilization.  Yet 
forty  years  after  the  time  of  Vacarius,  Oxford's  scholastic 
standing  was  well  won ;  at  the  opening  of  the  thirteenth 
century  she  was  supreme  in  her  own  country,  and  had  also 
obtained  the  recognition  of  older  continental  foundations. 

The  medieval  meaning  of  such  terms  as  university  and  col- 
lege should  not  be  confused  with  their  modern  connotation. 
The  Latin  word  universitas,  from  which  the  English  deriva- 
tion comes,  originally  denoted  any  collective  body,  regarded 
as  such.     When  employed  in  a  strictly  educational  sense  it 

'  The  name  of  Vacarius  does  not  appear  in  Le  Neve's  "Fasti,"  the  index 
of  which  has  been  examined  by  the  author  at  the  British  Museum.  This 
would  cast  doubt  on  the  preferment  of  Vacarius  to  the  prebend. 


JOHN  WYCLIFFE  33 

was  supplemented  by  an  additional  phrase,  the  current  ex- 
pression being,  "  Universitas  magistrorum  et  scholarium." 
In  late  fourteenth  century  usage  the  term  university  was 
defined  as  a  community  of  teachers  and  scholars  whose 
corporate  existence  had  secured  the  consent  and  approval 
of  either  or  both  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authorities.  The 
term  studium  and  later  studium  generale,  denoting  a  center 
of  instruction  open  to  all,  was  the  more  customary  designa- 
tion of  these  communities.  The  studium  generale  slowly 
evolved  into  the  universitas  at  such  well-known  places 
as  Paris,  Bologna,  and  Oxford,  and  in  the  case  of  the  two 
former  cities  the  change  was  confirmed  by  Papal  bulls,  issued 
in  the  reign  of  Nicholas  IV.  The  word  college  was  simply 
the  old  Latin  collegium,  which  signified  any  organized  guild, 
religious,  educational,  industrial,  or  political,  applied  in 
course  of  time  to  secular  priests  living  in  common,  and  after- 
wards to  those  residences  at  Oxford  where  secular  students 
did  likewise. 

The  distinctive  features  of  the  English  college  system 
are  found  in  the  final  form  of  the  Statutes  of  Merton  bearing 
the  date  1274  and  the  seals  of  the  first  Edward.  The  orig- 
inal code,  which  perpetuates  the  name  of  the  ecclesiastical 
statesman,  Walter  de  Merton,  Chancellor  of  England,  was 
drawn  up  ten  years  earlier,  in  1264,  and  was  itself  the  result 
of  previous  schemes  for  the  maintenance  of  indigent  scholars 
at  Maiden  in  Surrey.  The  generous  endowments  provided 
by  Merton  were  employed  for  the  benefit  of  twenty  students 
and  two  or  three  priests  for  whom  a  hall  was  to  be  set  apart 
at  Oxford,  or  elsewhere,  if  such  a  lodging  was  procurable 
at  a  more  flourishing  seat  of  learning.  This  design  was 
afterwards  expanded,  rules  of  collegiate  discipline  were 
enacted,  and  eventually  Oxford  became  the  permanent  home 
of  these  students.  The  intellectual  freedom  of  the  college 
marked  a  departure  from  the  monastic  idea,  prevented  it 
from  being  a  nursery  for  the  advocates  of  Papal  supremacy, 
and  enabled  it  to  train  a  succession  of  graduates  who  rendered 


34         THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

efficient  service  to  Church  and  State.  These  measures,  as 
bold  in  their  innovation  as  they  were  beneficial  and  far 
reaching,  became  the  sources  of  a  normal  policy  of  adminis- 
tration under  which  colleges  superseded  monasteries  and  halls 
as  the  residences  of  students  and  strongholds  of  discipline. 
It  was  apparent  that  they  could  not  realize  such  aims 
without  buildings  which  should  be  a  nucleus  for  the 
accumulation  of  the  best  traditions  of  the  past  and  of 
worthy  purposes  for  the  future.  In  this  undertaking 
Merton's  efforts  were  seconded  by  the  foundation  of  New 
College  in  1379,  under  the  patronage  of  William  de  Wyke- 
ham,  Bishop  of  Winchester.  The  last  of  the  great  episcopal 
architects  of  the  Middle  Ages,  Wykeham,  was  perhaps  more 
renowned  for  his  structures  than  for  his  statesmanship. 
He  adorned  the  bare  Norman  interior  of  his  cathedral 
with  the  Perpendicular  style,  and  the  school  he  established 
in  the  former  capital  city  shares  with  Eton  the  honor  of 
being  a  college  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word.  But  his  rank 
as  the  second  founder  of  the  college  system  is  determined 
by  the  grandeur  and  regularity  of  the  noble  quadrangle 
and  still  nobler  chapel  which  were  the  most  dignified  and 
beautiful  of  their  kind  Oxford  had  yet  seen.  That  which 
Merton  had  accomplished  in  the  statutory  regulations 
of  the  colleges,  Wykeham  furthered  by  their  architectural 
dignity  and  domestic  comfort  as  compared  with  the  older 
hostels,' 

VI 

In  any  attempt  to  recall  the  Oxford  of  Saxon,  Norman, 
and  later  eras,  the  modern  city  must  be  dismissed  from  the 
mind.  There  was  little  in  the  outward  aspect  of  its  humble 
genesis  and  slow  development,  retarded  by  violent  periods 
of  war,  riot,  and  pestilence,  to  suggest  those  mystical  en- 
chantments which  owe  much  to  the  hand  of  Time.  The 
bewitching  vision,  steeped  in  sentiment,  of  graceful  towers, 

1  G.  C.  Brodrick  :   "History  of  the  University  of  Oxford"  ;   pp.  32-33. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  35 

quiet  cloisters,  embowered  gardens,  immemorial  elms,  and 
lawns  of  living  green, 

"Where  a  thousand  gray  stones  smile  and  sigh, 
A  thousand  rustling  trees," 

is  very  largely  the  growth  of  later  days.  When  Wycliffe 
entered  the  place  he  plunged  into  a  bewildering  maze  of 
mean,  filthy  streets,  lined  with  dingy  hovels  and  crowded 
with  a  jostling,  brawling  throng  of  townsmen,  priests, 
scholars,  and  vagrants.  Within  the  houses  the  floors  and 
halls  were  strewn  with  rushes,  beneath  which  accumulated 
refuse  decayed,  the  windows  were  unglazed,  the  chambers 
airless  and  pestiferous,  the  atmosphere  reeked  with  foul 
odors.  Single  rooms  served  for  the  common  purposes  of 
cooking,  dining,  visiting,  and  sleeping.  Sanitation  was 
unknown,  and  frequently  dirt  was  regarded  as  a  sign  of 
sanctity.  Even  the  homes  of  the  better  classes  were  not 
exempt  from  these  conditions  ;  and  the  churches  and  church- 
yards were  indescribably  noisome.  Courts  and  lanes,  in 
which  darkness  prevailed,  were  knee  deep  with  feculent 
matter  and  rendered  dangerous  by  open  cesspools.  The 
recurring  pestilences  which  decimated  Europe  can  be  under- 
stood when  it  is  remembered  that  these  barbarous  habits 
were  characteristic  of  continental  and  English  towns.  The 
wonder  is,  not  that  so  many  died,  but  rather  that  so  many 
escaped  death.  Yet,  notwithstanding  the  toleration  of  such 
evils,  there  was  in  Oxford,  as  in  many  other  municipalities 
of  the  later  Middle  Ages,  a  sense  of  civic  virtue  and  of  social 
obligation  which  eventually  established  better  conditions. 
In  the  meantime,  religious  duty,  though  vaguely  con- 
ceived in  many  practical  directions,  was  the  source  of 
genuine  corporate  life  and  unity.  Master  and  man,  teacher 
and  student,  trader  and  artisan,  knew  how  to  think  and  act 
together  because  they  were  held  in  the  bonds  of  a  catholic 
faith.  The  thirteenth  century  was  distinguished  by  the 
founding  of  University,  Balliol,  and  Merton  Colleges;    the 


36        THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

fourteenth,  by  that  of  Oriel,  Exeter,  Queens,  and  New 
Colleges.  Thus  Oxford's  high  water  mark  in  architecture 
and  other  material  provisions  for  education  was  attained  in 
an  era  when  the  country  at  large  was  devastated  by  plagues 
and  insurrections. 

We  have  already  noted  the  dissimilarity  between  the 
intelligent  energy  and  design  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries  and  the  comparative  confusion  and  barren- 
ness of  the  age  of  Wycliffe.  For  nearly  two  hundred  years 
the  uniform  depression  of  the  Middle  Ages  had  been  broken 
by  an  interval,  the  enthusiasms  and  aspirations  of  which 
were  too  generous  to  be  permanent.  The  revulsion  which 
followed  sprang  from  an  utter  weariness  of  soul,  accentuated 
by  bitter  disappointments,  painful  uncertainties,  and  wide- 
spread distrust.  Men  were  not  willfully  disobedient ;  they 
were  sorely  spent,  and  unable  any  longer  to  realize  the  vision 
which  disappears  when  it  is  neglected.  Such  enervation 
is  still  the  human  fate :  the  cycles  of  day  and  night  persist, 
and  though  the  one  is  not  so  welcome,  it  is  as  natural  as  the 
other.  Yet  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  suppose  that  every 
good  cause  was  wrecked  or  forsaken.  The  edifices  and 
endowments  which  are  now  not  only  a  national  but  practi- 
cally a  world-wide  heritage  were,  in  part,  the  products  of 
the  period  many  historians  have  unsparingly  denounced. 
They  cannot  be  dissociated  from  their  authors,  who,  if 
the  buildings  are  a  guide,  well  knew  that  they  were  deal- 
ing with  the  fortunes  of  an  enduring  institution.  They 
may  have  foreseen  that  these  structures  would  help  to  con- 
vey to  future  generations  the  changes,  the  conflicts,  the 
questionings,  the  reactions,  and  the  advances  which  have 
been  experienced  in  the  past  six  hundred  years.  The  sway 
of  such  personalities  as  Walter  de  Merton  and  William  of 
Wykeham  is  still  felt  within  Oxford's  precincts,  and  all 
its  founders  share  in  the  honor,  the  gladness,  the  suffering, 
and  the  achievement  of  the  life  of  scholarship.  Some  deeds 
these  men  did  are  best  buried  with  their  bones,  but  their 


JOHN  WYCLIFFE  37 

toil  for  the  first  University  of  the  English-speaking  nations 
should  be  gratefully  remembered,  not  only  there,  but  also 
here  in  the  New  World,  of  whose  mission  they  were  the 
forerunners.  It  was  wrought  when  immense  impediments 
had  to  be  overcome,  in  an  age  of  sparse  and  ignorant  pop- 
ulations cursed  by  poverty  and  superstition.  And  the 
greatest  glory  of  these  men  and  of  their  buildings  was  not 
in  stone  nor  gold,  but  in  that  essential  spirituality,  that 
stern  watchfulness,  that  meritorious  sympathy,  that  approval 
or  condemnation,  of  which  John  Ruskin  speaks,  and  which 
is  felt,  if  anywhere,  in  such  places  as  Oxford,  whose  walls 
have  so  long  been  "washed  by  the  passing  waves  of 
humanity." 

VII 

The  absence  of  personal  references  in  the  writings  of 
Wycliffe  compels  us  to  glean  our  ideas  of  his  university  life 
from  the  academic  conditions  of  the  period.  As  a  northern 
man  he  would  probably  find  his  way  to  Balliol  College,  and 
the  belief  long  held  that  in  1356  he  was  a  fellow  of  Merton, 
together  with  the  fact  that  his  name  was  enrolled  among  the 
commoners  of  Queens,  is  best  explained  by  the  contem- 
porary presence  in  Oxford  of  two  other  John  Wycliffes 
with  whom  he  has  been  confused.  Workman  states  that  one 
of  these  was  an  almonry  boy  at  Queens ;  ^  the  second  a 
portionist  at  Merton.^ 

Balliol  was  founded  between  the  years  1263  and  1268  ^ 
by  John  Balliol  of  Barnard  Castle,  Yorkshire,  the  father  of 
the  nobleman  to  whom  Edward  I  assigned  the  crown  of 
Scotland  and  whom  he  afterwards  deposed  in  1292.  The 
northern  and  southern  "nations,"  whose  feud  disturbed 
for  centuries  the  order  of  the  place,  had  their  headquarters 

1  Almonry  boy :  one  who  in  return  for  elementary  instruction  served  in 
the  chapel  choir  or  rendered  other  services.  He  was  generally  lodged  under 
the  care  of  the  Almoner. 

*  Portionist :   A  scholar  supported  on  the  foundation  of  the  college. 

'  The  most  assured  date  is  shortly  before  June,  1266,  when  a  hall  was 


38        THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

at  Balliol  and  Merton  respectively,  and  the  lines  were  so 
sharply  drawn  that  from  1334  onward  Merton  refused  to 
admit  northern  scholars  into  its  society.  Minor  rivalries 
inflamed  the  quarrel,  which  influenced  academic  action, 
and  especially  the  election  of  the  Chancellor,  whose  assist- 
ants were  known  as  the  northern  and  southern  proctors. 
The  frequent  fights  and  riotous  behavior  of  these  and  other 
factions  led  in  1274  to  the  adoption  of  the  "Concordia," 
the  precise  articles  of  which  read  like  those  of  a  treaty  of 
peace  between  hostile  powers  rather  than  an  act  of  uni- 
versity legislation.  But  they  did  not  prevent  the  disturb- 
ances against  which  they  were  enacted :  a  fierce  uproar 
in  1297  and  a  brutal  affray  of  the  student  clans  in  1319 
evidenced  the  militant  lawlessness  of  such  groups.  The 
"Great  Slaughter"  of  1354,  although  a  town  and  gown  affair, 
gave  further  proof  of  the  anarchical  conditions  which  then 
prevailed.  The  scholars  were  herded  together  in  miserable 
chambers  and  lecture  rooms,  where  care  and  comfort  were 
unknown ;  college  governance  was  still  very  primitive, 
while  that  of  the  University  had  scarcely  begun.  The 
frank  and  intimate  relations  which  afterwards  became  the 
cohesive  bond  of  varying  classes  were  then  all  but  impossible 
by  reason  of  the  existing  provincialism  and  poverty.  The 
latter  state  obliged  medieval  students  to  obtain  manual 
labor  for  support,  and  at  intervals  they  even  took  to  the  road 
and  begged  for  a  pittance. 

The  resources  of  knowledge  were  few  and  unsatisfactory ; 
museums  and  libraries  which  are  now  at  the  service  of  all 
were  then  beyond  the  wildest  dreams.  Wycliffe  and  his 
fellow  clerks  pored  over  the  faded  characters  of  worn  manu- 
scripts in  chambers  deprived  of  the  sun  by  day,  and  in  a 
nightly  darkness  faintly  relieved  by  flickering  oil  lamps  or 
rushlights.     The  nature  and  extent  of  their  learning  were 

founded  for  sixteen  poor  students.  John  Balliol  died  two  years  later,  in 
1268,  and  the  College  received  its  greatest  aid  from  his  wife,  Dervorgilla, 
whose  benefactions  date  from  1284,  when  Balliol  first  obtained  a  house  of 
its  own. 


JOHN  WYCLIFFE  39 

amazing;  their  industry  probably  surpassed  that  of  any 
later  scholars.  They  lived  a  separated  life,  avoiding  the 
ordinary  recreations  and  athletic  exercises  of  the  youth  of 
England,  with  no  outdoor  pursuits  or  pastimes  to  vary 
their  arduous  study.  Yet  its  tasks  were  illuminated  by  the 
ambitions  which  burned  within  them  the  more  steadily  be- 
cause of  their  privations.  Regardless  of  the  din  and  revelry 
of  drunken  roysterers  in  alley  and  lane,  the  best  of  these 
men  plodded  steadily  onward,  memorizing  or  copying  mys- 
terious phraseologies  which  are  now  meaningless,  but  were 
then  accepted  and  conned  as  primary  truths  that  might  at 
any  turn  in  their  pursuit  reveal  a  universal  law  prevailing 
throughout  the  whole  realm  of  knowledge.  Those  who  were 
able  to  endure  the  necessary  exertion  of  body  and  mind 
knew  the  joy  of  the  strong;  their  intellectual  capacities 
became  firm  and  flexible,  and,  had  these  students  enjoyed 
the  advantages  of  the  scientific  method,  they  would  have 
demonstrated  their  superiority  over  successors  who  have 
been  more  fortunate  in  their  environment,  but  not  in  native 
or  acquired  ability.  It  ill  becomes  their  heirs  to  mock  at 
efforts  which,  though  wrongly  directed,  still  merit  the 
recognition  due  to  heroic  striving. 

That  men  of  the  type  of  Wycliffe  sometimes  fell  short 
of  the  goal  is  nothing  against  them,  since  they  accom- 
plished all  that  was  possible  in  the  nature  of  their  studies. 
Meanwhile,  their  failure  cleared  the  ground  for  the  New 
Learning  of  the  next  century.  Only  as  the  theories  they 
painfully  evolved  proved  worthless,  could  thinkers  be 
made  to  understand  that  their  system  was  insufficient, 
and  thus  be  set  free  to  pursue  more  correct  methods  of 
investigation.  In  this  way  they  helped  to  transfer  the 
center  of  gravity  from  deduction  to  induction,  from  dog- 
matic assumption  to  experiment  and  hypothesis.  The 
progress  of  human  affairs  owes  something  to  these  indirect 
courses,  in  which  steadfast  men  strove  to  attain  truth 
by  means   of   conceptions   which,  although  in  themselves 


40        THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

imperfect,   eventually   pointed  to  the  substance  of  which 
they  were  the  shadow. 

Again,  the  monastic  influence  at  Oxford  had  steadily 
waned  from  the  days  of  Edmund  Rich,  whose  beautiful  and 
pathetic  story  heightened  the  religious  temper  of  the  Uni- 
versity, but  could  not  check  its  tendency  toward  secular 
inquiry.  Where  monasticism  as  a  spiritual  ideal  separated 
itself  from  the  world,  it  frequently  fell  a  victim  to  the  forces 
it  despised ;  on  the  other  hand,  where  it  linked  itself  with 
other  systems  it  invariably  lost  its  professed  sanctity.  In 
its  purest  form  it  was  averse  to  unhampered  development  in 
any  direction  save  that  of  mystical  speculation,  and  when 
the  laity  asserted  their  title  to  a  place  in  the  sun  of  assured 
knowledge,  the  gradual  emancipation  of  learning  from  cleri- 
cal tutelage  was  unavoidable.  These  causes  explain  the 
fact  that  the  monastic  colleges  are  of  minor  importance 
in  the  history  of  education.  The  monks  never  heartily 
applied  themselves  to  the  scholastic  philosophy,  and  the 
older  monastic  orders  did  not  produce  a  single  first  class 
theologian  from  St.  Bernard's  time  to  the  closing  days  of 
medievalism.  The  coming  of  the  friars  gave  a  fresh  impetus 
to  clericalism,  and  the  Benedictines  ^  strove  to  remedy  the 
shortcomings  of  their  order  by  sending  a  few  selected 
members  to  the  University.^  But  they  could  not  repress 
the  laical  spirit  in  the  colleges  which  grew  apace  under  the 
sheltering  protection  of  the  Church.  Their  general  contact 
with  an  ampler  existence  began  in  the  latter  half  of  the  twelfth 
century,  and  despite  the  contraction  of  the  syllabus  in  the 
direction  of  dialectics,  before  the  close  of  Edward  the  Third's 

1  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  never  was  any  monastic  control  of  education 
at  Oxford,  nor  did  the  monasteries  make  any  effort  to  set  up  foundations 
there  untU  the  Chapter  General  of  the  Benedictines  held  at  Abingdon  in 
1289,  which  imposed  a  lev'y  of  two  pence  in  the  mark  to  build  a  hall.  In 
1284  temporary  provision  was  made  for  the  Benedictines  in  a  house  on  Stock- 
well  Street.    The  first  real  monastic  college  was  Gloucester  Hall,  built  in  1291. 

'  These  were  few  indeed.  Christ  Church  monastery  at  Canterbury  rarely 
found  that  it  could  maintain  more  than  four  students  at  Christ  Church, 
Oxford,  and  the  total  number  of  monks  at  the  University  was  always  small. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  41 

reign  they  had  become  sufficiently  national  to  justify  the 
description  of  their  secular  aims  contained  in  the  third  book 
of  Gower's  "Vox  Clamantis."  This  temper  fostered  con- 
ceptions which  questioned  those  accepted  dogmas  that  had 
hitherto  been  the  staple  themes  of  instruction.  Nor  can 
there  be  any  doubt  that  it  influenced  Wycliffe,  the  bent  of 
whose  mind  harmonized  with  its  aggressiveness. 

It  was  not  as  a  semi-ecclesiastical  corporation,  but  as  a 
center  of  religious  vitality  and  positive  thinking  that  the 
Oxford  he  knew  contributed  to  the  shaping  of  character 
both  in  men  and  in  the  times.  It  had  been  said  of  Paris 
that  whatever  was  read  and  taught  there  was  sooner  or 
later  read  and  taught  in  Oxford.  But,  with  the  rupture  of 
the  once  close  intimacy  of  the  two  institutions,  this  sub- 
serviency had  ceased,  and  the  younger  no  longer  shone 
in  a  borrowed  light.  She  boasted  doctors  of  her  own, 
whose  daring  and  versatility  outdistanced  those  of  the  older 
and  more  conservative  body  at  Paris.^  Wycliffe's  rela- 
tions to  these  thinkers  and  the  subjects  they  discussed  can 
be  set  forth  later ;  meanwhile  it  should  be  noted  that  some 
of  them  were  in  latent  opposition  to  the  orthodox  systems  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  Their  feudal  presumptions  depended  on 
the  segregation  of  human  groups,  and  necessarily  decreased 
when  arbitrary  distinctions  of  blood  and  birth  lost  ground. 
Their  alignments  had  hitherto  been  determined  by  the 
accidents  of  temporal  boundaries  and  by  the  paramountcy 
of  those  material  forces  which  are  generally  recognized  as 
subversive  of  the  social  order.  Against  this  condition  as  a 
whole  the  European  schools  were  at  once  a  protest  and  to 
some  extent  a  remedy.  The  students  who  frequented  them 
were  known  as  the  "nations,"  and  the  universities  earned 
the  credit  of  creating  and  welding  together  the  most  liberal 
and  international  of  fraternities.  Notwithstanding  their 
internal  bickerings  and  jealousies  they  shared  a  classical 

1  H.  Rashdall :    "Universities  of  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages";    Vol.  II, 
pp.  519-520. 


42        THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

language  which,  however  badly  construed  and  spoken,  was 
at  least  freed  from  the  strife  of  variant  tongues.  Intellec- 
tual kinships  throve  apace,  the  doctrines  of  celebrated 
masters  were  diffused  in  widely  separated  communities,  and 
leavened  the  fear  and  dislike  which  had  rendered  every 
foreigner  suspect.^ 

Chaucer's  familiar  lines  indicate  the  good  impression 
which  the  best  type  of  student  made  on  the  people  at  large : 

"  A  Clerk  ther  was  of  Oxenford  also. 
That  un-to  logik  hadde  longe  y-go. 
As  lene  was  his  hors  as  is  a  rake, 
And  he  nas  nat  right  fat,  I  undertake; 
But  loked  holwe,  and  ther-to  soberly. 
Ful  thredbar  was  his  overest  courtepy; 
For  he  had  geten  him  yet  no  benefyce, 
Ne  was  so  worldly  for  to  have  offyce. 
For  him  was  lever  have  at  his  beddes  heed 
Twenty  bokes,  clad  in  blak  or  reed, 
Of  Aristotle  and  his  philosophye, 
Than  robes  riche,  or  fithele,  or  gay  sautrye. 
But  al  be  that  he  was  a  philosophre, 
Yet  hadde  he  but  litel  gold  in  cofre; 
But  al  that  he  might  of  his  freendes  hente. 
On  bokes  and  on  lerninge  he  it  spente, 
And  bisily  gan  for  the  soules  preye 
Of  hem  that  yaf  him  wher-with  to  scoleye. 
Of  studie  took  he  most  cure  and  most  hede, 
Noght  o  word  spak  he  more  than  was  nede, 
And  that  was  seyd  in  forme  and  reverence, 
And  short  and  quik,  and  ful  of  hy  sentence. 
Souninge  in  moral  vertu  was  his  speche. 
And  gladly  wolde  he  lerne,  and  gladly  teche."  ^ 

His  unpretentious  appearance,  mute  evidence  of  the 
hardships  of  a  life  devoted  to  knowledge  and  to  the  memories 
of  pious  founders,  not  only  disarmed  prejudice,  but  com- 
mended him  to  public  esteem  and  confidence.     Monks  and 

1  The  "  nations"  at  Paris  were  fourfold:  those  of  France,  Picardy,  Nor- 
mandy, and  England.  The  English  "  nation  "  included  the  Scotch  and  Ger- 
mans.    At  Oxford  there  were  but  two  nations,  the  Australs  and  the  Boreals. 

^  Prof.  W.  W.  Skeat's  edition. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  43 

friars  no  longer  secured  the  donations  of  the  great  and 
wealthy  for  their  religious  houses.  Instead,  these  gifts 
were  bestowed  upon  the  secular  clergy,  who  were  rapidly 
formulating  an  ethical  and  political  system  deriving  its 
principles  elsewhere  than  from  the  Church,  and  setting  up 
a  rival  authority  not  yet  clearly  defined,  but  nevertheless 
sedulously  maintained.  In  summary,  it  can  be  said  that  in 
an  age  of  change  and  doubt,  when  human  life  was  deprived 
of  the  light  of  a  former  faith,  the  gloom  was  pierced  at  inter- 
vals by  the  radiance  which  streamed  from  the  colleges. 


VIII 

We  obtain  a  glimpse  of  Wycliffe  at  Oxford  between  the 
years  1356  and  1360,  when  he  was  elected  Master  of  Balliol, 
an  office  not  then  by  any  means  so  considerable  as  now,  but 
for  which  he  could  hardly  have  become  a  candidate  had  he 
not  been  a  fellow  of  that  institution.  In  1361  he  relin- 
quished it  for  the  college  living  of  Fillingham  in  Lincoln- 
shire; in  the  same  year  "John  de  Wyclif  of  the  diocese  of 
York,  M.  A. "  petitioned  the  Roman  Curia  for  his  designation 
to  a  prebend,  canonry,  and  dignity  at  York,  "notwith- 
standing that  he  holds  the  church  at  Fillingham."  The 
prayer  was  answered,  though  not  as  Wycliffe  desired,  and 
on  November  24th,  1369,  he  received  the  prebend  of  Aust 
in  the  collegiate  church  of  Westbury-on-Trym,  near  Bristol.^ 
It  is  probable  that  Wycliffe  occupied  this  benefice ;  and  the 
latest  investigations  show  that  the  connection  of  his  name 
with  the  Wardenship  of  Canterbury  Hall,  although  deemed 
erroneous  by  some,  has  substantial  evidence  in  its  favor. 
The  Hall  was  planned  to  shelter  both  seculars  and  monks, 
an  intention   frustrated   by  their  endless  wranglings  from 

'  There  was  nothing  unusual  in  this  preferment  on  the  part  of  the  Pope  ; 
it  was  really  a  medieval  equivalent  of  the  modern  fellowship,  and  was 
granted  to  such  masters  as  were  selected  by  the  Pontiff  from  the  lists  which 
the  universities  submitted. 


44    THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

1365  to  1371.  Small  importance,  however,  is  attached  to 
Wycliffe's  association  here,  save  that  in  after  years  his 
enemies  attributed  his  attacks  upon  the  rehgious  orders 
to  the  severe  treatment  he  was  then  supposed  to  have  re- 
ceived from  Archbishop  Langham.  The  diocesan  registers 
of  Lincoln  state  that  in  1368  Bishop  Buckingham  granted 
Wycliffe  two  years'  leave  of  absence  from  his  church  in 
order  that  he  might  devote  himself  to  the  study  of  letters 
at  the  University.  About  this  time  he  exchanged  his  living 
at  Fillingham  for  the  rectorate  of  Ludgershall,  in  Bucking- 
hamshire, which  brought  him  within  sixteen  miles  of  Oxford. 
In  1372,  after  sixteen  years  of  incessant  preparation,  he 
obtained  the  coveted  degree  in  divinity  which  gave  him  the 
right  to  lecture  on  theology,  and  in  the  following  year  the 
Pope  conferred  upon  his  "  dilectissimus  filius"  a  canonry 
of  Lincoln,  while  allowing  him  to  retain  the  prebend  he 
already  held  at  Aust. 

From  these  fragmentary  records,  some  of  which  are  far 
from  explicit,  two  facts  distinctly  emerge.  The  first  is  that 
he  was  a  pluralist  and  an  absentee  rector,  accepting  and 
practising  the  customs  he  afterwards  denounced  ;  the  second, 
that  his  return  to  Oxford  was  utilized  for  the  further  enrich- 
ment of  his  learning.  His  controversy  with  the  Papal 
authority  had  not  yet  arisen,  and  the  mistaken  assertion 
that  he  published  his  "  Determinatio  Qusedam  de  Dominio" 
in  1366  as  a  protest  against  the  tribute  levied  by  Urban  V, 
is  without  admissible  support.  This  work  contained  only 
hints  of  his  doctrine  of  "lordship,"  and  was  not  written  until 
at  least  seven  years  after  the  Pope's  levy.  During  the 
interval  before  the  storm,  wind  and  tide  were  with  him,  no 
untoward  circumstances  sapped  his  strength  or  diverted 
his  attention  from  that  philosophy  in  which,  as  Knighton 
avers,  "  he  was  second  to  none :  in  the  training  of  the 
schools  without  a  rival."  Arundel,  the  relentless  foe  of 
the  Lollards,  bore  testimony  to  the  purity  of  his  personal 
life,  acknowledging  to  Thorpe  that  "Wycliffe  was  a  great 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  45 

clerk,  and  many  men  held  him  a  perfect  liver."  Some  of  his 
lectures  have  been  preserved  in  an  unrevised  notebook 
where  the  display  of  their  range  and  erudition  is  only  equaled 
by  their  complete  mastery  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.^ 

His  endowments  shed  a  departing  gleam  upon  the  philo- 
sophical system  of  which  he  was  the  last  exponent,  and 
from  the  fascinations  of  which  he  never  freed  himself.  In 
the  perspective  of  history  he  stands  forth  as  one  of  the 
dominant  figures  in  "a  mighty  and  astonishing  style  of 
scholarship  which,  doubtless  from  the  absence  of  the  proper 
social  conditions,  will  never  be  seen  again."  ^  It  has  already 
been  affirmed  that  in  the  fourteenth  century  Oxford's 
philosophers  surpassed  those  of  any  European  university, 
and  that  in  increasing  numbers  they  were  not  cloistered  but 
secular  clergy.  Certainly  at  no  earlier  time  could  the 
seculars  have  claimed  three  such  doctors  as  Thomas  Brad- 
wardine,  Richard  Fitzralph,  and  John  Wycliffe.  The 
Reformer's  political  employments  and  controversies  were 
not  without  detrimental  effects,  but  they  came  late  in  life, 
when  the  gaze  of  friends  and  foes  alike  was  fixed  upon  his 
formidable  power  of  advocacy.  The  massive  intellect  of  the 
man,  his  strong  personality,  his  gift  of  lucid  and  weighty 
utterance,  immediately  brought  his  colleagues  in  the  Uni- 
versity under  the  spell  of  his  influence,  and  eventually  won 
him  preferment  in  the  Church  and  an  international  reputa- 
tion. 

»  H.  B.  Workman  :  "The  Dawn  of  the  Reformation"  ;  Vol.  I,  pp.  113-114. 
*JohnFiske:  "  Darwinism  and  Other  Essays  "  ;  p.  250. 


CHAPTER  II 
SOURCES  OF  WYCLIFFIANISM 


47 


When  religion  and  the  interest  of  the  soul  are  the  subjects  of  de- 
bate, the  sparks  of  human  energy  are  kindled  as  by  a  charm,  and  spread 
with  the  rapidity  of  an  electric  fluid.  Opinions  work  upon  actions, 
and  actions  react  upon  opinions;  the  defense  of  truth  or  error  stirs 
up  the  moral  powers,  and  leads  men  on  to  deeds  of  vigor,  and  the 
effects  of  active  zeal  reflect  upon  the  opinions  and  systems  of  men,  and 
raise  them  to  those  heights  of  speculative  and  logical  abstraction, 
which  are  the  wonder  of  beholders  and  the  engima  of  future  genera- 
tions. 

Lije  of  St.  Germanus. 


48 


CHAPTER  II 

SOURCES    OF    WYCLIFFIANISM 

Wycliffe's  literary  associations  with  Oxford  —  His  relation  to  Scho- 
lasticism —  The  Scholastic  method  —  Its  rise  and  progress  —  Nomi- 
nalism and  Realism  —  The  teaching  of  Aquinas  —  Duns  Scotus  and 
his  absolutist  doctrines  —  Reaction  in  William  of  Ockham  —  "Defen- 
sor Pacis"  of  Marsiglio  —  Difference  between  English  and  Continen- 
tal Scholasticism  —  Wycliffe  and  the  Nominalist  controversy  — -  His 
modified  Realism  —  His  attitude  towards  theological  problems  — 
Thomas  Bradwardine  —  Wycliffe's  criticism  of  Bradwardine  —  Trea- 
tises on  "Divine  Dominion"  and  "Civil  Lordship"  —  Wycliffe  the 
last  great  Schoolman  —  His  alliance  with  John  of  Gaunt  —  Confer- 
ence of  Bruges  —  Wycliffe's  literary  activity. 


At  this  time  Wycliffe  had  achieved  the  desire  of  his 
heart;  his  associations  with  Oxford  were  destined  to  be 
prolonged  and  memorable,  and  from  there  his  prolific  pen 
gave  forth  those  larger  works  on  philosophy  and  theology 
which  are  now  seldom  read.  IVIany  of  his  pamphlets  and 
treatises  on  papal  claims  and  imposts,  the  political  status 
of  the  clergy,  indulgences,  and  other  contentious  issues 
were  also  written  at  the  University.  His  friendship  with 
its  teachers  and  doctors  was  a  welcome  aid  and  a  protection 
in  his  hours  of  loneliness  and  danger.  And  when  in  his 
declining  years  its  leaders  forsook  him,  their  desertion 
was  a  severe  blow  to  his  propaganda.  In  the  interval,  if 
the  practical  affairs  of  the  nation  were  benefited  by  his 
diversified  yet  systematized  knowledge,  those  which  related 
to  religious  and  clerical  questions  were  quite  as  fortunate. 
His  utterances  and  writings  were  very  unequal  in  merit, 
E  49 


50        THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

but  the  best  of  them  were  not  mere  turgid  rhetoric  pro- 
fusely poured  out;  they  crystaUized  around  an  axiomatic 
and  intrepid  reasoning  which  was  the  imperative  working 
principle  in  many  of  his  intellectual  and  literary  efforts.  His 
premises  may  not  be  ours ;  indeed,  we  may  think  them  often 
obscure  or  incomplete,  and  at  times  unwarranted.  Yet  it 
is  patent  that  some  were  carefully  chosen,  and  while  in  the 
absence  of  the  inductive  method  the  matter  of  his  argument 
was  frequently  at  fault,  its  form  was  usually  correct.  In 
brief,  Wycliffe  was  a  Schoolman,  whose  strength  and  weak- 
ness were  alike  due  to  an  inherited  system  which  should 
be  explained  in  order  that  his  merits  as  a  thinker  may  be 
appreciated. 

Scholasticism  was  an  able  and  praiseworthy  attempt  to 
reconcile  the  dogmas  of  faith  with  the  dictates  of  reason, 
and  thus  formulate  an  inclusive  system  on  the  presup- 
position that  the  creed  of  the  Church  was  the  one  reality 
capable  of  rationalization.  As  the  product  of  Christian 
intellectualism,  it  acted  under  the  Aristotelian  method, 
and  was  governed  by  the  fundamental  assumption  that  all 
phenomena  must  be  understood  from  and  toward  theology. 
The  early  Fathers  had  bequeathed  to  their  successors  a 
well-articulated  and  comprehensive  theological  dogma, 
and  also  the  philosophical  apparatus  which  determined 
and  shaped  its  content.  When  the  Schoolmen  realized  the 
nature  of  the  bequest  they  endeavored  to  recover  the  spirit 
of  inquiry  which  lay  behind  its  results,  and  consequently 
the  Church  entered,  almost  automatically,  upon  a  period 
of  stress  and  strain  similar  to  those  she  had  previously 
experienced.  Now,  however,  additional  factors  intervened 
and  intensified  the  situation.  The  organization  and  growth 
of  the  Papacy  reinforced  the  predicates  of  authority,  catho- 
licity, dogmatism,  and  the  predominance  of  spiritual  claims, 
while  the  imperial  influence  of  St.  Augustine  was  widely 
diffused  in  contemporary  theology. 

The   Scholastic   system   can   be   surveyed  in   two   nearly 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  51 

equal  divisions  of  the  period  extending  from  the  ninth  to  the 
end  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  first  of  these  divisions, 
which  terminated  with  the  twelfth  century,  was  represented 
by  Erigena,^  Roscellinus,  Anselm,  William  of  Champeaux 
and  his  pupil  Abailard ;  the  second,  by  Albertus  Magnus, 
Thomas  Aquinas,  Duns  Scotus,  and  William  of  Ockham. 
The  science  of  these  scholars,  in  so  far  as  that  term  is  appli- 
cable, dealt  almost  exclusively  with  divinity.  Yet  theirs 
was  an  age  of  reason  as  well  as  of  faith,  and  no  part  of  their 
work  could  be  canceled  without  a  shock  to  the  continuity 
of  progress.  It  is  easy  for  the  disciples  of  later  intellectual- 
ism  to  say  that  their  pursuit  of  truth  was  a  mockery,  since 
they  started  upon  the  journey  carrying  their  convictions 
with  them,  or  that  they  fabricated  absurd  and  ridiculous 
problems  and  then  proceeded  to  demonstrate  their  validity 
or  invalidity.  The  Schoolmen  do  not  deserve  these  gibes; 
they  keenly  felt  the  spiritual  experiences  on  which  they 
discoursed,  and  craved  an  adequate  defense  for  them. 
Careless  criticism  of  their  action  has  been  displaced  by 
the  weighty  judgment  of  Harnack,  that  their  system  "  gives 
practical  proof  of  eagerness  in  thinking  and  exhibits  an 
energy  in  subjecting  all  that  is  real  and  valuable  to  thought 
to  which  we  can  find,  perhaps,  no  parallel  in  any  other 
age."  -  If  their  philosophy  was  not  an  effective  means  for 
enriching  knowledge,  it  was  a  method  for  the  training  of  the 
intellect  which  strengthened  the  reasoning  powers  and  pre- 
pared them  for  penetrative  and  comprehensive  work.  In 
these  respects  the  metaphysic  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  closely 
related  to  that  of  later  experimental  schools ;  its  mission  was 
to  expand  and  invigorate  the  human  mind  until  the  bound- 
less fields  of  the  natural  sciences  were  opened  to  research. 

1  Erigena  was  really  of  the  spiritual  tradition  of  the  Christian  Mystics 
and  intellectually  a  Neo-Platonist,  rather  than  a  typical  Scholastic.  He 
may  be  regarded  as  a  connecting  link  between  these  schools  and  the  more 
pronounced  Scholasticism  which  predominated  from  the  eleventh  to  the 
fourteenth  centuries. 

2  "  History  of  Dogma"  ;  Vol.  VI,  p.  25. 


52        THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

The  two  camps  of  Realists  and  Nominalists  furnished  the 
material  for  scholastic  discussion.  The  Introduction  to  the 
"Isagoge"  of  Porphyry,  the  Neo-Platonist,  anticipated  the 
differences  which  afterwards  separated  them.  "Next  con- 
cerning genera  and  species  the  question  indeed  whether  they 
have  a  substantial  existence,  or  whether  they  consist  in  bare 
intellectual  concepts  only,  or  whether  if  they  have  a  sub- 
stantial existence  they  are  corporeal  or  incorporeal,  and 
whether  they  are  inseparable  from  the  insensible  properties 
of  things,  or  are  only  in  these  properties  and  subsisting 
about  them,  I  shall  forbear  to  determine,  for  a  question  of 
this  kind  is  very  deep."  The  majority  of  his  readers  will 
undoubtedly  cheerfully  acquiesce  in  this  decision. 

The  Realists  contended  that  reality  belonged  only  to 
universal  conceptions,  and  that  particulars  of  any  kind  were 
merely  mental  conveniences.  For  example,  the  term 
"house"  did  not  denote  the  thing  itself,  but  only  the  im- 
material idea.  This  reasoning  was  also  applied  to  man, 
for  whom  reality  consisted  in  the  humanity  shared  with 
all  men  and  not  in  a  distinct  ego.  Individuality  was  entirely 
dependent  upon  its  participation  in  the  general  essence  of 
the  species.  Everything  in  heaven  and  on  earth  was  pri- 
marily of  one  substance  with  the  all-comprehending  Universal 
Being.  The  germs  of  the  Pantheism  of  Spinoza  can  be  de- 
tected here,  and  also  those  of  later  forms  of  Idealism.  The 
Nominalists  maintained  that  universals  were  merely  terms, 
and  that  reality  had  no  meaning  apart  from  the  individual 
and  the  particular;  intellectual  conceptions  and  universal 
relations  being  purely  mental  processes  without  any  actual 
existence.  These  unqualified  assertions  were  sufficiently 
damaging  to  orthodoxy  to  alarm  its  supporters.  Their 
instincts  revolted  against  a  doctrine  of  which,  as  Dr.  Rash- 
dall  comments,  the  skeptical  sensationalism  of  Hume  and 
the  crudest  forms  of  later  materialism  were  but  illogical 
attenuations.  Yet,  while  Nominalism  did  not  secure  any 
permanent  hold  upon  the  accepted  theology  of  the  Church, 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  53 

its  insistence  that  the  particular  and  the  individual  were  the 
only  realities  paved  the  way  for  the  inductive  method  in 
physical  investigation. 

II 

Realism  received  its  greatest  exposition  and  defense 
from  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  an  Italian  of  rank  and  the  School- 
man par  excellence,  who  lived  from  1227  to  1274.  The 
pupil  of  Albertus  Magnus  in  the  Dominican  school  at 
Cologne,  in  1245  he  followed  his  master  to  Paris,  where  he 
graduated  in  theology,  after  which  he  returned  to  Cologne 
to  become  assistant  to  Albertus.  Aquinas  surpassed  all 
other  teachers  as  the  embodied  essence  of  Scholasticism 
and  the  most  admirable  example  of  the  spirit  and  doctrine 
of  the  medieval  Church.^  His  "Summa  Theologiae"  is 
an  unequaled  effort,  in  which  the  mysteries  of  the  Christian 
faith  and  the  certitudes  of  the  human  reason  are  defined  as 
the  two  sources  of  knowledge.  While  they  are  distinct  in 
themselves,  revelation  has  the  indisputable  priority,  since, 
as  the  fountain  of  absolute  truth,  it  manifests  the  life  of 
Deity,  and  its  sovereign  precepts  are  the  causes  and  not  the 
results  of  that  manifestation.  Both  faith  and  reason 
must  be  received  as  they  are  given,  in  their  completeness 
and  unity,  with  no  part  advanced  at  the  expense  of  the 
rest.  The  Holy  Scriptures  and  Church  tradition  being 
the  appointed  channels  of  Divine  verity,  the  student  should 
know  the  doctrines  of  the  Bible  and  the  interpretations  of 
the  Fathers,  together  with  the  decisions  of  the  Councils 
thereupon. 

Reason,  as  Aquinas  conceived  it,  was  infinitely  more  than 
the  product  of  any  single  brain.  It  was  the  presiding  and 
inspiring  attribute  of  the  collective  human  mind,  which 
hitherto  •  had  found  its  freest  vent  in  the  meditations  of 
Plato  and  the  methods  of  Aristotle.  The  life  of  reason  did 
not  remain  in  a  state  of  disintegration  and  confinement  to 

1  H.  B.  Workman:    "The  Dawn  of  the  Reformation"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  132. 


54   THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

separate  points,  but  resulted  in  the  formation  of  a  common 
intellectual  harmony.  Both  revelation  and  reason  were 
under  the  direction  of  the  living  and  creating  energies  of 
the  Eternal  Being.  They  shared  one  origin  and  one  goal, 
and  their  offspring  in  theology  or  philosophy  presented 
that  compatibility  which  was  one  of  the  main  tenets  of 
Scholasticism  and,  indeed,  practically  monopolized  its 
argument.  The  prepared  and  diligent  seeker  might  himself 
become  a  vehicle  for  their  communications,  and  thus,  in 
his  turn,  add  to  the  definite  gains  which  benefited  history 
and  society.  But  he  was  admonished  that  they  contained 
a  superior  knowledge  forever  beyond  the  grasp  of  man, 
who  was  compensated  by  a  secondary  knowledge  to  which 
he  could  attain.  The  truths  within  human  reach  were  but 
the  foothills  of  an  inaccessible  height  where  God  reserved 
the  pattern  of  His  omniscient  will.  Toward  that  lofty 
region  revelation  and  reason  converged,  and  there  found 
their  perfect  reconciliation.  While  Aquinas  regarded 
Christian  theology  as  the  sum  and  crown  of  all  inquiry, 
he  included  the  Greek  philosophers  in  his  spacious  survey 
and  was  influenced  by  Averroes  and  Avicenna,  the  Saracenic 
interpreters  of  Aristotle.  For  he  held  that  far  from  being 
explicable  by  natural  processes,  as  these  are  usually  under- 
stood, the  generalizations  of  non-Christian  thinkers  were 
traceable  to  the  authority  of  those  sacred  writings  which 
really  controlled  every  intellectual  movement,  and  their 
teachings  were  specified  by  him  as  the  axioms  of  an  all 
pervasive  spiritual  life.  His  superb  learning  was  evinced 
in  the  "Catena  Aurea,"  where,  under  the  form  of  a 
commentary  on  the  Gospels,  he  gave  a  succinct  summary 
of  the  traditional  views  concerning  them.  His  more  direct 
exposition  of  the  Psalms,  the  prophecies  of  Jeremiah  and 
Isaiah,  and  the  Epistles,  was  equally  clear  and  concise. 
From  these  studies  he  turned  to  the  Greek  thinkers,  suprem- 
acy among  whom  he  accorded  to  Aristotle,  whose  dialectic 
suited  the  complexion  of  his  own  mind. 


JOHN    WYCLIFFE  55 

Indeed,  it  can  be  said  that  the  philosophy  of  St.  Thomas 
is  Aristotle  Christianized,  and  that  the  doctors  for  whom 
he  was  the  spokesman  looked  on  nature  and  man  through 
the  medium  of  the  Stagirite's  formulae.  Principal  Fairbairn 
remarks  that  "  if  churches  always  canonized  their  benefactors, 
Aristotle  would  long  ago  have  been  at  the  head  of  the  Roman 
Calendar.  There  were  many  Schoolmen,  but  they  all  had 
one  master,  and  they  built  by  his  help  and  to  his  honor 
systems  that  even  he  would  have  acknowledged  to  be  ency- 
clopedic and  marvels  of  architectonic  craft."  ^ 

The  ambition  of  Aquinas  that  his  "Summa"  should  be 
the  totality  of  learning^  fused  into  a  living  unity  and 
subject  to  ecclesiastical  guardianship,  was  seconded  by  the 
spirituality  which  interpenetrated  his  work.  It  was,  and 
still  is,  for  the  Papacy  and  the  Curia,  the  standard  the- 
ology, and  its  efforts  to  prove  "that  religion  is  rational 
and  that  reason  is  divine,  that  all  knowledge  and  all  truth, 
from  whatever  source  derived,  must  be  capable  of  har- 
monious adjustment,"  ^  deserve  the  attention  of  those  who 
accept  the  sentiment  of  Aubrey  Moore  that  whatever  is 
truly  religious  is  finally  reasonable.  The  moderate  Realism 
which  the  "Angelic  Doctor,"  who  is  the  patron  saint  of 
many  Roman  Catholic  institutions  of  learning,^  so  trium- 
phantly interpreted  became  a  shining  mark  for  the  attacks 
of  the  Nominalists  of  the  next  generation. 

Foremost  among  its  assailants  was  the  Franciscan  John 
Duns  Scotus  (1275  ?-1308).  The  broken  and  uncertain 
records  of  his  unique  career  assert  that  he  died  when  only 
thirty-four  years  of  age.     If  this  is  correct,  the  rapidity 

*  "Christ  in  Modern  Theology"  ;  p.  119. 

^  H.  Rashdall :  "Universities  of  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages";  Vol.  I, 
p.  367. 

'  The  Franciscans  have  never  completely  acknowledged  the  supremacy  of 
St.  Thomas,  although  Pope  Leo  XIII  practically  made  his  teaching  the 
official  authority  of  the  Church.  It  is  also  interesting  to  note  that  his  doc- 
trines have  been  echoed  in  the  theories  of  Bergson.  Both  thinkers  use  the 
method  of  analogy  and  their  concept  of  order  is  essentially  practical  and 
theological.  The  Bergsonian  views  are  anticipated  in  the  "  Summa  "  to  a 
limited  degree,  but  it  would  be  absurd  to  claim  their  wholesale  agreement. 


56        THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

and  extent  of  his  literary  output,  to  say  nothing  of  its 
microscopic  detail  and  tortuous  processes,  are  among  the 
marvels  of  human  achievement.  His  controversial  attitude 
was  swayed  by  the  current  antagonism  between  the  Fran- 
ciscans and  the  Dominicans.  Aquinas  was  constructive, 
Scotus  destructive ;  the  former  was  essentially  a  philosopher, 
the  latter  a  critic  whose  dexterous  turns  earned  him  the 
title  of  "Doctor  Subtilis."  He  insisted  that  his  great 
predecessor  erred  in  founding  theology  upon  speculation 
rather  than  practice.  Faith  was  an  act  of  the  will  and 
not  an  outflow  of  the  mind,  and  the  intellect  could  not  easily 
find  what  was  loosely  called  a  rational  basis  for  the 
phenomena  with  which  faith  dealt.  The  most  careful 
defense  of  this  position  was  open  to  the  attacks  of  the 
skeptical.  Revelation  and  dogma  were  the  only  reliable 
guardians  of  anything  noble  and  true,  and  the  ontology  of 
Aquinas  was  therefore  worthless  as  an  apologetic.  The 
existence  and  nature  of  God  could  not  be  proved  by  reason. 
Even  the  Gospels  were  unworthy  of  credence  save  on  the 
authority  of  the  Church,  and  the  tenets  of  religion  were 
accepted  and  obeyed,  not  in  deference  to  human  under- 
standing, but  under  the  immediate  impulse  of  divine  neces- 
sity. God  commands  what  is  good  because  it  is  good, 
argued  Aquinas;  the  good  is  such  because  God  wills  it, 
rejoined  Scotus;  had  He  willed  the  opposite,  the  fact  of 
His  doing  it  would  constitute  its  righteousness.  In  the 
one  case  the  determinant  was  an  ethical  volition ;  in  the 
other  an  arbitrary  affirmation  which  had  no  necessary  ethical 
quality. 

The  tendency  of  the  philosophy  of  Scotus  was,  as  Dr. 
Rashdall  phrases  it,  towards  "an  emotional  prostration 
before  authority  popularly  called  faith,"  and  its  ulti- 
mate drift  lay  in  the  direction  of  doubt.  His  extravagant 
advocacy  of  ecclesiastical  supremacy,  his  superfluous  in- 
tricacies and  imaginary  entities  were  more  than  merely 
fanciful ;    they    marked    the    fast    approaching    decay    of 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  57 

medieval  thought,  and  this  was  hastened  by  his  less  pal- 
pable but  graver  error  in  divorcing  faith  from  reason, 
thus  threatening  the  citadel  of  the  wisest  Schoolmen. 
Neither  his  zeal  for  higher  doctrine  nor  his  identification  of 
faith  with  a  blind  submission  to  the  Church  could  repair 
the  havoc  he  had  wrought  by  weakening  the  distinctions 
between  right  and  wrong.  He  made  moral  action  dependent 
on  the  unconditioned  arbitrary  will  of  God,  and  reduced 
duty  to  a  mere  matter  of  prudent  calculation.^ 

The  inevitable  reaction  found  its  advocate  in  William  of 
Ockham,  the  "Invincible  Doctor"  whose  new  interpretation 
of  Nominalism  heralded  the  dissolution  of  Scholasticism  and 
repudiated  its  historic  loyalty  to  the  Holy  See.  "Univer- 
sals,"  for  Ockham,  existed  only  in  "the  thinking  mind,"  and 
no  theological  doctrines  were  rationally  demonstrable.  The 
modern  scientist  could  accept  many  of  his  statements  with- 
out serious  modification,  and  in  the  light  of  later  philosophy 
he  was  not  so  much  a  Nominalist  as  a  Conceptualist.  But, 
while  he  revived  Nominalism  of  a  qualified  sort,  he  could 
not  overcome  the  current  of  Realism  which  "dimly  and 
blindly  testified  to  the  part  mind  plays  in  the  constitution  of 
the  objects  of  our  knowledge  ^  to  the  truth  that  in  all  our 
knowledge  there  is  an  ethical  element  which  comes  not  from 
any  supposed  'external  object'  but  from  the  mind  itself."  ^ 
His  forceful  individuality  was  felt  in  his  leadership  of  the 
Spiritual  Franciscans,  who,  so  long  as  he  was  their  head, 
observed  both  by  precept  and  example  the  vows  of  their 
order.  This  policy  revealed  the  latent  antagonism  between 
the  political  autocracy  of  Hildebrand  and  the  etherealized 
aspirations  of  the  Saint  of  Assisi.  When  Ockham  with  others 
inveighed  against  the  Papal  decisions  on  property,  Pope 
John  XXH  pronounced  condemnation  on  the  Franciscan 
doctrine  relating  thereto,  an   act  which  led  to  further  differ- 

1  H.  Rashdall :  "Universities  of  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages";  Vol.  II, 
p.  534. 

"^  Ibid.,  Part  II,  pp.  356-357. 


58    THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

ences  until  the   order  was  denied  oflBcial  recognition  and 
placed  under  the  ban  of  the  Church. 

Ockham's  contention  that  the  State  was  a  divine  ordina- 
tion, and  should  therefore  be  freed  from  ecclesiastical  con- 
trol, aggravated  the  discontent  which  provoked  the  conflicts 
between  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor.  From  these  in  turn 
sprang  the  nationalism  to  which  reference  has  been  made,  and 
which  nurtured  the  theories  of  religious  freedom  and  the 
rights  of  civil  government.  Through  Wycliffe  and  Hus  the 
protest  against  the  temporal  claims  of  the  Papacy  passed  into 
the  keeping  of  the  sixteenth  century  Reformers.  Yet  Ock- 
ham's courageous  impeachment  was  exceeded  by  that  of  his 
pupil  Marsiglio  de  Mainardino  (1270-1342),^  whose  "  Defensor 
Pacis"  was  the  most  original  political  treatise  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  As  the  title  indicates,  it  was  intended  to  establish  the 
concord  of  society  upon  a  democratic  basis,  maintaining  that 
the  source  of  law  was  in  the  people  themselves,  who  should 
elect  the  chief  executive  of  the  nation,  be  the  judges  of  his  ad- 
ministration, and  if  it  were  found  errant  or  corrupt,  hold  him 
liable  for  its  failures  and  crimes.  The  fictitious  supremacy 
of  the  Papacy  was  denounced  as  the  root  of  the  troubles 
which  afflicted  the  State;  the  Pope,  his  bishops  and  clergy, 
were  denied  all  right  to  promulgate  interdicts  or  excom- 
munications, or  in  any  way  insist  upon  the  observance  of 
what  they  deemed  the  divine  law.  This  power  was  vested 
in  the  Church  alone,  acting  in  unity  and  with  the  consent 
of  the  entire  body  of  believers,  and  to  that  end  General 
Councils  ought  to  be  composed  of  clerics  and  laymen  alike. 
The  Bible  was  the  sole  authority  of  faith  and  doctrine,  and 
Papal  decrees  should  be  subjected  to  its  teachings.  Such 
was  the  quality  of  Marsiglio's  plea  for  constitutional  freedom, 
which  gave  him  a  prior  claim  to  the  honors  afterwards  be- 
stowed on  Wycliffe;    indeed,  in  the  bull  directed  against 

1  Marsilius  of  Padua  is  distinguished  by  the  best  critics  from  Marsiglio 
de  Mainardino,  though  in  the  British  Museum  Catalogue  they  are  identi- 
fied.    Marsiglio  de  Mainardino  was  a  Canon  of  Padua  in  1316. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  59 

the  English  schismatic,  Gregory  XI  declared  that  the  here- 
sies of  the  Reformer  but  represented  with  a  few  terms 
changed  "the  perverted  opinions  and  ignorant  doctrine  of 
Marsiglio  of  damned  memory,  and  of  John  of  Jandun." 
Yet  this  execrated  thinker  alone  divined  the  secret  of  an 
age  unborn,  and  laid  down  in  all  essentials  the  principles 
which  were  to  mold  the  political  institutions  of  the  distant 
future,^ 

III 

The  strange  neglect  which  seemed  to  follow  these  men  to 
their  graves  prevented  any  just  appraisal  of  Marsiglio's 
services.  The  enemies  of  Roger  Bacon,  the  most  illustrious 
English  scholar  and  thinker  of  his  day,  who  moved  heaven 
and  earth  to  come  into  direct  contact  with  reality,  almost 
succeeded  in  destroying  his  reputation,  and  only  within  a 
comparatively  recent  period  has  it  emerged  from  a  long 
eclipse.  Similarly,  in  the  case  of  WyclifFe,  his  voluminous 
works,  with  few  exceptions,  remained  in  manuscript  for 
over  five  hundred  years.  Even  now  many  of  them  are  still 
unpublished,  and,  so  far  as  their  present  interest  is  concerned, 
are  likely  to  remain  so.  Enough  have  been  rescued  from 
oblivion,  however,  to  show  that  he  stood  in  a  philosophical 
sequence  to  the  scholars  already  named. 

Although  the  great  movement  which  had  illuminated 
the  spiritualities  of  life  from  the  time  of  Anselm  and  Abailard 
virtually  ended  with  Wycliffe,  it  nevertheless  retained  suffi- 
cient virtue  to  enable  him  to  rank  as  a  learned  clerk  versed 
in  the  labyrinthine  windings  of  scholastic  philosophy. 
The  majority  of  his  predecessors  were  unanimous  in  their 
devotion  to  the  Papacy,  but  that  allegiance  was  now  shaken 
and  the  Holy  See  openly  assailed.  This  hostility  was  one 
among  other  symptoms  of  the  restlessness  which  pervaded 
Oxford    and    Paris,   and    was    encouraged    in    the    former 

*  Archibald  Robertson:    "Regnum  Die";    p.  313. 


60        THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

and  repressed  in  the  latter  University.  At  Paris  the 
theologians  were  at  their  wits'  end  to  quiet  the  doubts  and 
questionings  which  fermented  beneath  a  correct  and  prosaic 
surface.  Oxford,  with  the  rest  of  England,  enjoyed  immu- 
nity from  the  terrors  of  the  Inquisition,  which  were  un- 
known there  until  Henry  IV  needed  the  support  of  the 
Church  because  of  his  beclouded  title  to  the  crown. 
The  University  was  therefore  undeterred  in  those  courses 
which  inspired  and  reflected  the  national  will.  Her  doctors 
were  not  only  expounders  and  defenders  of  metaphysics; 
they  were  also  the  organ  voices  of  the  secular  govern- 
ment and  its  claims.  Thus  while  Latin  Scholasticism  was 
for  political  reasons  prevented  from  occupying  the  wider 
and  more  genuinely  intellectual  interests,  the  English  type 
increasingly  assimilated  an  independency  evoked  by  the 
events  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries. 

Wycliffe  turned  this  conditions  of  affairs  to  good  account : 
the  unembarrassed  speculative  and  practical  tendencies  of 
his  life  as  a  scholar  offset  to  some  extent  the  diflSculty  he 
experienced  in  dealing  with  a  decadent  system  which  was 
rapidly  degenerating  into  a  philosophical  quarrel.  While 
this  situation  forbade  originality,  it  drove  him  to  other 
spheres  of  inquiry,  in  which  he  was  the  founder  of  a  school 
of  his  own,  the  chief  authorities  of  which  were  the  Fathers 
of  the  early  Church.  He  possessed  in  an  unusual  degree 
the  power  of  seizing  upon  and  adapting  the  products  of  crea- 
tive minds  in  such  a  manner  as  to  secure  for  them  a  favor- 
able hearing.  His  leading  ideas  were  either  restatements  or 
modifications  of  tradition ;  his  minor  principles  were  truths 
recovered  from  long  obscurity.  He  acted  without  the  prece- 
dents he  afforded  to  Hus,  and  in  this  sense  he  may  be  re- 
garded as  a  discoverer.^ 

As  between  the  Realists  and  the  Nominalists  Wycliffe 
stood  with  the  former,  albeit  with  some  concessions  to  the 
objections  urged  by  the  opposing  school.     His  position  was 

1  C.  M.  Trevelyan:    "England  in  the  Age  of  Wycliffe"  ;   p.  173. 


JOHN    WYCLIFFE  61 

a  protest  against  the  extravagances  of  the  Scotists  and  of 
the  revised  Nominalism  of  Ockham;  for  his  thorough- 
going disposition  the  substratum  of  their  creeds  was  an  im- 
possibiUty.  His  Reahsm,  though  modified,  ran  counter 
to  any  theory  of  illusion :  he  ascribed  reality  to  mental 
ideas,  and  denied  the  subjectivism  which  treated  them  as 
mere  phantoms  of  the  imagination.^  The  Realists'  faith  in 
the  validity  of  knowledge  was  grounded  upon  reason  and  upon 
the  actuality  of  the  objective  world.  But  reality  also  per- 
tains to  subjective  consciousness,  and  it  is  only  when  both 
are  taken  into  account  that  a  reconciliation  can  be  effected. 
Wy cliff e's  doctrine  of  the  Deity  showed  a  leaning  toward 
that  philosophical  Pantheism  which  characterized  all  varieties 
of  Realism.  "God  is  all  and  in  all.  Every  existing  thing 
is  in  reality  God  itself,  for  every  creature  which  can  be  named 
is,  in  regard  to  its  'intelligible,'  and  consequently  its  chief, 
existence,  in  reality  the  word  of  God."  Perceiving  the 
dangerous  side  of  these  propositions  he  amended  them  by 
adding,  somewhat  illogically,  that  they  gave  "no  color  to 
the  conclusion  that  every  creature  whatsoever  is  God."  ^ 
The  will  of  God  "is  His  essential  and  eternal  nature  by 
which  all  His  acts  are  determined."  Creation  is  conditioned 
by  it,  and  is  neither  an  arbitrary  selection  nor  a  process  of 
emanations,  but  the  only  possible  universe  and  an  immediate 
work  at  a  specific  time.  This  was  directly  contrary  to  the 
aflSrmation  of  the  Scotists  that  God  does  not  choose  to  do 
anything  because  it  is  best,  but  that  whatever  He  does  is 
best  solely  because  He  pleases  to  do  it.  He  regarded  Divine 
Omnipotence  as  self-determined  and  morally  regulated  by 
the  inner  laws  of  God's  Being.  Omniscience  argues  an 
eternal  Now :  that  which  is  to  be  in  point  of  time  is  and 
ever  was  in  relation  to  the  Supreme  Mind.     His  discussion 


»  H.  B.  Workman:  "The  Dawn  of  the  Reformation";  Vol.  I,  pp.  139- 
140. 

2  Quoted  by  G.  V.  Lechler:  "Wycliffe  and  his  English  Precursors"; 
pp.  253-254. 


62   THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

of  the  Trinity  proceeded  on  lines  laid  down  in  part  by  the 
Fathers  and  in  part  by  the  Schoolmen.  Its  main  interest 
centers  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Son  as  the  Logos,  the  sub- 
stantive Word;  an  inclusive  theory  which  embraced  all 
"realities  that  are  intelligible,"  that  is,  capable  of  being 
realized  in  thought,  and  of  which  the  Logos  was  the  mediating 
element  or  member  between  God  and  the  Universe.^ 

He  compromised  on  the  question  of  predestination  and 
free-will,  using  for  the  purpose  the  Aristotelian  distinc- 
tion between  that  which  is  absolutely  necessary  and  that 
which  is  necessary  on  a  given  supposition.  When  he  faced 
the  fact  of  sin  in  the  light  of  his  own  statement  that  God 
wills  only  that  which  has  being,  he  replied  that  sin  was  the 
negation  of  being  and  therefore  could  not  be  willed  by  the 
Deity,  Who  necessitated  men  in  their  deeds,  which,  in  them- 
selves, were  neither  right  nor  wrong,  and  took  of  morality 
only  through  man's  use  of  them  by  means  of  his  free  agency.^ 
Here  Wycliffe  forsook  the  teaching  of  Thomas  Bradwardine 
(1290-1349),  the  "Doctor  Profundis"  with  whom  he  had  an 
intellectual  kinship  to  which  the  development  of  his  own  ideas 
was  indebted. 

Bradwardine's  importance  has  been  overlooked  by  modern 
writers,  and  he  deserves  more  than  a  passing  reference. 
Neander  does  not  mention  him  and  Gieseler  does  so  only 
to  misconstrue  his  teaching.  More  recently,  however,  such 
authorities  as  Lechler  and  Workman  have  given  him  the  at- 
tention he  merits.  He  was  a  native  either  of  Hartfield 
in  Sussex,  or  of  Chichester,  and  a  student  at  Merton 
College.  In  1325,  the  year  when  the  University  was  largely 
freed  from  the  control  of  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  Bradwardine 
was  appointed  its  proctor.  In  1339  he  became  chaplain  and 
confessor  to  Edward  the  Third,  whom  he  accompanied  to 
the  French  Wars.  His  earnestness  and  benevolence  pro- 
cured for  him  the  Archbishopric  of  Canterbury,  to  which 

*  G.  V.  Lechler:    "Wycliffe  and  his  English  Precursors"  ;    p.  253. 

*  Encyclopwdia  Britannica,  XI  Edition,  Article  on  Wycliffe. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  63 

he  ascended  unsullied  by  the  slightest  stain  of  selfishness  or 
worldly  ambition.  After  a  journey  to  Avignon  to  receive 
consecration,  he  returned  to  London  only  to  be  smitten  with 
the  Black  Death  at  Lambeth  Palace,  where  he  died  on 
August  26,  1349.  Few  prelates  have  been  so  widely  and 
deservedly  loved  and  esteemed ;  his  untimely  decease  was 
a  national  sorrow  in  which  king,  lords,  and  people  alike 
shared.  A  spiritual  awakening  he  had  experienced  while 
still  a  student  at  Oxford  regenerated  his  entire  life,  and 
was  the  secret  spring  of  his  religious  insight  and  moral 
distinction.  Anticipating  Bunyan  and  Wesley,  he  narrated 
this  visitation  in  words  of  the  heart,  ascribing  his  conver- 
sion to  elective  grace  rather  than  to  his  own  volition. 
"So  then,"  he  quoted  from  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  "it  is  not  in  him  that  willeth,  nor  in  him  that 
runneth,  but  in  God  that  showeth  mercy."  It  is  hardly  sur- 
prising that  his  theology  was  profoundly  necessitarian;  his 
treatise  "De  Causa  Dei"  became  the  fountain  of  Anglican 
Calvinism,  which  asserted  that  in  the  act  of  sin  there  is 
a  complete  exclusion  of  freedom  of  choice,  since  the  Ever- 
lasting Will  infallibly  determines  man's  conduct,  and  con- 
sequently human  free  will  has  no  existence. 

This  was  too  radical  for  Wycliffe,  who  objected  that  any 
criminal,  however  desperate  and  wicked,  would  be  justified 
in  saying  "God  determines  me  to  all  these  acts  of  trans- 
gression, in  order  to  perfect  the  beauty  of  the  Universe."  ^ 
Such  a  conclusion  totally  condemned  the  suppositions  from 
which  it  was  drawn.  Hence,  although  influenced  by  the 
obdurate  predestination  theory  which  was  embedded  in 
Bradwardine's  theology,  Wycliffe  swerved  from  its  more 
pronounced  position,  and  while  he  agreed  with  the  Arch- 
bishop that  everything  which  takes  place  does  so  of  neces- 
sity, and  further,  that  the  Divine  Being  cooperates  in  all 
actions  of  the  human  will  to  the  extent  of  determining  them, 
he  tried  to  save  man's  freedom  of  choice  from  any  prejudice 

'  Quoted  by  G.  V.  Lechler :    "De  Dominio  Divino"  ;    I,  c.  15,  p.  265. 


64        THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

due  to  the  cooperation.  In  particular  he  repudiated  the 
arbitrary  notion  that  if  any  man  sins  it  is  God  Himself  who 
determines  him  to  the  act,  contending  that  the  motive 
which  prompts  the  evil  deed,  and  is  the  main  element  of 
transgression,  did  not  proceed  from  God. 

IV 

Wycliffe's  unique  contribution  to  later  medieval 
thought  is  found  in  his  treatises  "De  Dominio  Divino" 
and  "De  Dominio  Civih."  The  former  was  an  extension 
of  Richard  Fitzralph's  phrase  that  "dominion  is  founded 
in  grace"  and  the  latter  a  corollary  of  the  former.  Fitz- 
ralph,  who  has  already  been  quoted  in  reference  to  the  age 
of  the  undergraduates  of  Oxford,  was  a  fellow  of  Balliol 
College  about  the  year  1320,  appointed  Chancellor  of  the 
University  in  1333,  and  in  1347  consecrated  Archbishop  of 
Armagh.  He  employed  his  theory  as  a  weapon  to  assail 
the  Franciscan  doctrine  of  evangelical  poverty,  arguing  that 
to  abjure  all  holding  of  property  was  to  run  counter  to  the 
laws  governing  social  relations,  and  also  to  those  between 
God  and  man.  In  this  Wycliffe  favored  the  austerity  of 
Ockham  and  the  Fraticelli  as  against  Fitzralph's  inter- 
pretation. Further,  Wycliffe's  treatment  of  lordship  was 
powerfully  affected  by  Augustine's  views  on  the  nature  of  sin. 
According  to  these  "  sin  is  nothing,  and  men,  when  they  sin, 
become  nothing.  Evil  is  a  negation  and  those  who  yield 
themselves  to  it  cease  to  retain  any  positive  existence. 
Clearly,  then,  they  can  possess  nothing,  can  hold  no  lordship. 
That  which  they  seem  to  possess  is  no  real  or  proper  posses- 
sion at  all ;  it  is  but  the  unjust  holding  of  that  which  they 
must  one  day  restore  to  the  righteous.  'From  him  that 
hath  shall  be  taken  even  that  which  he  seemeth  to  have.' 
As  thus  the  wicked  hath  nothing,  so  on  the  other  hand  the 
righteous  is  lord  of  all  things."  ^ 

i  Quoted  in  "Social  England,"  Vol.  II,  pp.  163-164  ;  edited  by  H.  D.  Traill. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  65 

WyclifFe's  discussion  of  this  and  corresponding  matters 
is  still  in  manuscript  form,  the  only  extant  copy  of  which  is 
kept  at  Vienna.  It  filled  three  volumes,  which  were  pre- 
liminary to  his  major  and  collective  work,  the  "Summa  in 
Theologia."  Lechler  regards  these  volumes  as  the  indica- 
tion of  his  transition  from  the  philosophical  to  the  strictly 
theological  phase  of  his  career,  and  it  is  conjectured  that  he 
wrote  them  shortly  after  he  had  completed  his  studies  in 
theology  at  the  University.  The  contemporary  disputes 
between  Philip  the  Fair  and  Pope  Boniface  VIII,  and  be- 
tween the  Emperor  Louis  of  Bavaria  and  Pope  John  XXII, 
raged  around  the  vexed  questions  of  Papal  supremacy  over 
the  State,  and  thus  directly  concerned  lordship  or  dominion. 
These  quarrels  may  have  been  a  contributing  cause  in 
determining  Wycliffe's  views  with  regard  to  lordship; 
another  cause  was  the  controversy  of  the  Holy  See  with  the 
Spiritual  Franciscans,  who  sought  to  enforce  that  rule  of 
their  order  which  forbade  it  to  hold  either  personal  or  cor- 
porate property.  Out  of  this  dispute  arose  the  larger  issue 
whether  or  not  Christ  and  His  Apostles  had  individually  or 
collectively  authorized  such  a  regulation.  The  obligation 
of  poverty  as  a  vow  of  the  mendicant  friars  clashed  with 
the  policy  of  John  XXII,  who  personally  was  far  removed 
from  such  drastic  renunciations,  and  declared  against  them 
in  a  series  of  bulls  ending  in  the  sentence  of  excommunica- 
tion upon  those  who  opposed  his  decision. 

Whatever  was  the  effect  of  these  events  upon  Wycliffe, 
there  is  ample  proof  that  he  gave  prolonged  consideration 
to  the  general  question  and  carried  it  forward  into  a 
practical  communism,  the  perils  of  which  were  somewhat 
mitigated  by  his  implication  of  lordship  with  service.  In  his 
opinion  each  was  essential  to  the  other.  The  Lordship  of  God 
Himself  began  only  when  He  created  beings  to  perform  His 
service.  Moreover,  the  Supreme  Lordship  was  distinguished 
from  that  of  man  by  the  fact  of  its  domination  over  all  crea- 
tures, and  by  the  same  condition  of  service ;  for  every  living 


66        THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

being  owes  it  to  his  God  to  serve  Him  with  his  whole  being. 
"God  rules  not  mediately  through  the  rule  of  vassals  who 
serve  Him,  as  other  kings  hold  lordship,  since  immediately 
and  of  Himself  He  makes,  sustains,  and  governs  all  that  which 
He  possesses,  and  assists  it  to  perform  its  works  according 
to  other  uses  which  He  requires."  ^  Nor  does  He  give 
any  lordship  to  any  of  His  servants  "except  He  first  give 
Himself  to  them." 

The  principle  that  in  the  sight  of  God  all  men  are  equal 
had  been  recognized  from  early  times ;  but  Wycliffe,  not 
content  to  leave  it  in  the  sphere  of  sentiment,  built  it  into 
his  political  philosophy.  In  feudal  phraseology  he  would 
have  said  that  all  men  held  from  God  on  the  same  terms  of 
service.  From  this  he  argued  that  the  standing  which  a 
man  has  before  God  is  the  criterion  by  which  his  position 
among  men  must  be  determined.  If  through  transgression 
a  man  forfeited  his  divine  privileges,  then  of  necessity  his 
temporal  privileges  also  were  lost.  Even  the  Pope  himself, 
if  morally  unsound,  retained  his  right  of  lordship  no  longer. 

The  entire  theory  was  attached  to  the  article  that  the 
creature  could  produce  nothing  save  what  God  had  already 
created.  Anything  He  granted  to  His  servants  was  first  a 
part  of  Himself,  and  when  bestowed  He  was  still  suzerain 
and  retained  the  ultimate  disposition  of  the  gift.  It  followed 
from  this  that  the  Divine  Lordship  was  forever  and  in  all 
respects  supreme,  and  that  upon  it  human  lordship  was 
dependent.  Men  held  whatever  they  had  received  from 
God  as  stewards,  and  if  found  faithless  could  justly  be 
deprived  of  what  may  be  called  their  fief.  A  subtle  distinc- 
tion was  made  between  lordship  and  actual  ownership; 
nothing  of  the  former  was  of  the  nature  of  property,  for 
property  was  the  result  of  sin ;  hence  Christ  and  the  Apostles 
would  have  none  of  it. 

Wycliffe  met  the  obvious  possibility  that  all  men  were 

1  "De  Dominio  Divino,"  I,  c.  5:  quoted  in  "Social  England,"  Vol.  II, 
pp.  162-163. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  67 

liable  to  dispossession  for  breach  of  tenure,  in  that  all  had 
sinned,  by  urging  that  his  theory  required  a  pure  social  ideal, 
and,  while  in  actual  practice  "dominion  was  denied  to  the 
wicked,  power  might  be  permitted  to  them  to  which  Chris- 
tians should  submit  from  motives  of  obedience  to  God." 
His  emasculated  conclusion  was  quickly  seized  upon  by 
opponents,  nor  could  Wycliffe  prevent  it  from  passing  over 
into  an  absurdity. 

The  paradoxical  nature  of  this  part  of  the  argument  did 
not  interfere  with  its  general  application  to  the  Church  as 
the  standard  of  universal  faith  and  morals.  Wycliffe 
agreed  with  Ockham's  contention  that  she  should  hold  no 
property.  He  urged  that  endowments  had  an  injurious 
effect  by  involving  her  in  temporal  affairs.  Her  work 
lay  within  the  sphere  of  the  soul,  and  her  influence 
should  be  restricted  to  spiritual  supervision.  He  rejected 
the  policy  of  Hildebrand  and  his  successors,  declaring  that 
the  Papacy  had  nothing  to  do  with  civil  government, 
and  that  it  ought  to  regain  its  old  ideal  of  supremacy 
over  men's  hearts  and  consciences ;  "  for  to  govern  tempo- 
ral possessions  after  a  civil  manner,  to  conquer  kingdoms 
and  exact  tribute,  appertain  to  earthly  lordship,  not  to  the 
Pope ;  so  that  if  he  pass  by  and  set  aside  the  office  of  spiritual 
rule,  and  entangle  himself  in  those  other  concerns  his  work  is 
not  only  superfluous  but  also  contrary  to  Holy  Scripture."  ^ 
He  further  declared  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  State  to 
vindicate  its  right  of  control  over  its  own  affairs.  Terri- 
tories and  revenues  held  by  the  Church  should  revert  to  the 
nation.  The  likelihood  of  the  Church's  retaliation  upon  its 
plunderers  led  to  his  well-known  utterance  on  the  matter  of 
excommunication.  If  she  should  use  such  a  weapon,  it 
could  be  of  no  effect  unless  by  his  own  sin  a  man  had  ex- 
communicated himself  and  cut  himself  off  from  all  spiritual 
communion.  No  external  decree  pronouncing  spiritual 
banishment  could  overcome  a  man's  consciousness  of  his 

'  "De  Dominio  Civili,"  I,  17,  quoted  in  "Social  England,"  Vol.  II,  p.  164. 


68        THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

continuation  in  a  state  of  divine  grace.  WyclifFe  studiously 
avoided  saying  anything  derogatory  to  the  reigning  Pope. 
On  the  contrary,  he  expressed  himself  in  terms  of  loyalty, 
but  with  the  reservation  that  such  loyalty  did  not  obviate 
the  duty  of  resistance  to  the  Pontiff  if  his  claims  were  in 
contravention  of  Holy  Writ. 

The  readiness  with  which  he  passed  from  scholastic 
theology  to  complicated  political  and  social  conditions 
showed  that  instinct  and  feeling  were  the  trusted  guides  of 
his  mind.  He  occasionally  forgot  that  the  logic  of  meta- 
physics was  one  thing  and  the  logic  of  life  another.  His 
lack  of  moderation  and  his  contentment  with  a  technically 
correct  dialectic  sometimes  betrayed  him  into  an  unreal 
and  almost  fantastic  discourse,  in  which  he  viewed  the  issue 
at  stake  as  one  wherein  pure  theory  could  operate,  regard- 
less of  any  other  consideration.  This  weakness  was  ap- 
parent when  he  insisted  that  the  Church,  and  the  Universities 
as  a  part  of  the  Church,  should  cease  to  hold  real  endow- 
ments ;  and  that  the  clergy  should  confine  themselves  to 
theological  studies.  In  the  first  instance  he  pushed  to  the 
extremes  of  formal  disputation  opinions  he  had  imbibed 
from  the  mendicant  friars ;  in  the  latter,  his  postulate  that 
the  Holy  Scriptures  were  perfectly  sufiicient  for  a  clerical 
education  was  advanced  beyond  reasonable  boundaries 
and  unsupported  by  his  personal  example.  Yet  these 
extravagances  and  inconsistencies  were  redeemed  by  the 
warmth  of  his  natural  sympathies,  which  generally  were 
rightly  bestowed  and  gradually  led  him  to  become  aware 
of  something  nobler  and  more  vital  than  the  exactitudes  of 
Scholasticism  or  the  unquestioning  zeal  of  partisanship. 
When  force  of  reasoning  failed  him  he  was  frequently  aided 
by  that  insight  and  prevision  which  enable  prophetical  men 
rightly  to  value  the  germinating  power  of  apparently  hope- 
less but  pregnant  ideals.  His  solitariness  as  the  last  of  the 
Schoolmen  intensified  both  this  faculty  of  vision,  and  also 
his  faults  as  a  thinker.     The  ages  which  preceded  his  own 


JOHN  WYCLIFFE  69 

had  produced  great  figures  who  stood  forth  from  among  their 
contemporaries  upon  the  higher  levels  of  thought  and  achieve- 
ment. It  was  a  sign  that  disintegration  had  already  begun 
when  he  was  fated  to  stand  alone.  The  richer  the  summer, 
the  greater  the  decay  of  autumn.  Wycliffe  came  to  the 
vineyard  at  the  eleventh  hour,  when  Scholasticism's  day  was 
departing  and  its  sky  was  already  imbrowned  with  shadows. 
Chill  mists  had  begun  to  fall  upon  those  fields  in  which  were 
found  no  fellow  laborers  of  equal  capacity  to  correct  his 
peculiarities  or  counteract  his  excesses. 

Fortunately  for  himself  he  was  fertile  in  distinctions  and 
expedients,  yet  not  so  fortunate  in  his  facile  handling  of  the 
abstract  as  though  it  were  the  concrete.  The  former  gift 
combined  with  the  substantial  justice  of  the  causes  he 
undertook  to  overcome  the  difficulties  of  his  temperament, 
training,  and  isolation.  He  formulated  a  series  of  proposi- 
tions which  other  leaders  defended  and  furthered  against 
the  claims  of  the  Holy  See.  The  avowal  that  the  King  was 
God's  vicar  as  well  as  the  Pope,  and  that  the  State  had  a 
natural  right  and  dignity  which  should  not  be  impaired  by 
ecclesiastical  trespass,  was  carried  beyond  the  theoretical 
stage  as  early  as  1366,  when  Parliament  finally  refused  pay- 
ment of  the  annual  Papal  tribute.  The  report  of  the  debates 
on  this  action  was  strongly  influenced  by  Wycliffe's  views ; 
and  such  could  not  have  been  the  case  except  for  his  acquaint- 
ance with  public  affairs,  which  saved  him  from  mere  syllogistic 
manipulation  and  prevented  him  from  beating  the  air. 

His  critics  should  bear  in  mind  that,  had  not  his  more 
daring  conceptions  and  innovations  been  couched  in  the 
formal  phraseology  of  the  Schools,  they  would  probably 
have  been  instantly  rejected.  Their  nakedness  was  clothed 
with  a  garb  academically  correct,  which  concealed  the  fact 
that  they  constituted  a  revolutionary  departure  from  the 
authorized  tenets  then  current,  and  embodied  a  new  theory 
of  the  relation  between  Church  and  State.  Hence  the  main 
results  of  his  efforts  are  not  to  be  found,  as  some  of  his 


70        THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

readers  have  contended,  in  those  inventions  which  were 
largely  the  surplusage  of  his  genius.  On  the  contrary,  they 
appear  in  the  broadening  of  that  individual  and  national 
freedom  for  which  an  unbroken  lineage  of  scholars  and 
doctors  had  striven.  Marsiglio  had  demanded  that  the 
Church  should  limit  herself  to  her  own  province ;  Ockham 
had  vindicated  the  necessity  and  justice  of  an  autonomous 
secular  power ;  the  Spiritual  Franciscans  had  exemplified  the 
evangelical  poverty  which  the  Gospels  inculcated ;  Grosse- 
teste  had  denounced  pluralities  and  provisions;  Fitzralph 
had  insisted  that  dominion  was  founded  in  grace;  and 
Wycliffe  blended  these  separate  ideas  into  a  measurably 
consistent  unity. 

V 

Pope  Urban  V  has  come  down  to  us  as  the  best  of  the 
Avignon  popes,  so  far  as  purity  of  character  and  religious 
fervor  are  concerned.  His  labors  to  repress  simony  and  cor- 
ruption were  creditable,  and  it  was  he  who  in  his  desire 
to  escape  the  vicious  life  of  the  French  seat  made  an  un- 
successful attempt  to  reestablish  the  Papacy  in  Rome. 
Equally  futile  was  his  ill-timed  demand  for  the  homage  of 
England,  which  Wycliffe,  at  the  command  of  Edward  III, 
answered,  as  we  have  seen,  in  1366.^  The  Reformer  was  still 
teaching  at  Oxford  when  he  summarized  in  his  reply  the 
arguments  which  had  already  been  advanced  in  Parliament 
against  Urban's  action.  The  temper  of  the  national  legisla- 
ture, as  reflected  in  these  arguments  and  speeches,  indicated 
a  strong  antipapal  sentiment  in  England,  which  increased 
as  the  fourteenth  century  progressed. 

Apart  from  the  royal  mandate,  the  causes  of  Wycliffe's 
diversion  to  politics  may  have  lain  in  his  weariness  of  the 
endless  hairsplittings  of  the  philosophical  schools.  Their 
members  essayed  to  elucidate  eternal  mysteries  by  logic 

1  Whether  the  date  is  1366  or  1374  is  very  doubtful.  Some  authorities 
favor  the  later  date.     The  Pope's  demand  was  repeated  in  1374. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  71 

while  they  enshrouded  plain  everyday  truths  in  a  dense 
mist.  Political  action  offered  him  a  broader  path  and  firmer 
footing  than  theological  discussion.  Again,  not  only  were 
philosophy  and  theology  an  intellectual  unity  at  that  time, 
they  also  stood  in  close  relation  to  every  public  question. 
The  theologian  and  the  metaphysician  were  political  econo- 
mists of  a  sort,  and  Wycliffe's  attainments  in  the  first  two 
sciences  fitted  him  to  deal  with  questions  of  State  policy. 

By  far  the  most  distinguished  of  his  patrons  at  this  stage 
of  his  career  was  John  of  Gaunt  (1340-1399),  the  ablest 
and  most  unscrupulous  Englishman  of  the  time;  a  prince 
who  shared  the  qualities  and  ambitions  of  the  Plantag- 
enets,  and  devoted  his  talents,  as  the  leader  of  a  small  but 
compact  and  active  party,  to  the  aggrandizement  of  the 
Lancastrian  dynasty  and  its  supporters.  When  he  and 
Wycliffe  conjoined,  the  gloom  of  impending  national  mis- 
fortune had  begun  to  darken  the  last  years  of  Edward  III ; 
the  renewal  of  continental  peace  had  flooded  England  with 
a  stream  of  returning  soldiers,  whose  training  in  the  wars 
had  rendered  them  unfit  for  civil  life ;  France  was  pre- 
paring to  wrest  herself  free  from  the  yoke  of  her  enemies; 
and  the  Black  Prince,  whose  knighthood  mirrored  departing 
chivalry,  was  nearing  the  end  of  his  brilliant  military 
career.  It  seems  to  the  student  of  to-day  that  there  were 
more  natural  portents  of  evil,  more  droughts,  famines,  pesti- 
lences, seasons  of  abnormal  suffering  and  degradation  than 
the  world  has  ever  known  since.^  Aristocratic  and  terri- 
torial prerogatives  remained  unrestricted,  and  society  was 
drifting  towards  the  thunders  of  the  cataract.  Strange 
combinations  of  somber  circumstances  were  forming  when 
Parliament  in  1371  petitioned  the  throne  that  secular  men 
only  should  be  employed  in  the  royal  court  and  household. 

The  Duke  of  Lancaster's  alliance  with  Wycliffe  was 
prompted  by  selfish  motives  on  the  part  of  the  prince.     He 

>  This  sentence  was  written  before  the  outbreak  of  the  great  war  in 
Europe.     It  might  now  possibly  bear  revision. 


72        THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

was  in  hearty  agreement  with  the  Reformer's  proposal  that 
"the  king  and  his  witty  lords"  should  take  back  the  wealth 
and  endowments  of  the  Church  "by  process  of  time"; 
that  prelates  should  vacate  their  secular  offices  and  that  the 
extensive  ecclesiastical  estates  should  be  forcibly  recovered 
from  those  guilty  of  their  misuse.  But  here  the  concurrence 
ended.  Wy cliff e  would  have  applied  the  proceeds  of  such 
restitution  to  the  welfare  of  the  realm ;  Gaunt  was  bent  on 
securing  them  for  partisan  ends.  Meanwhile  the  compact 
remained  unshaken,  although  WycliflFe  was  disappointed 
at  the  pusillanimous  conduct  of  the  new  administration. 
When  the  Papal  collector  of  tribute,  Arnold  Gamier,  visited 
England,  the  royal  officials  merely  extracted  from  him  the 
customary  oath  that  he  would  do  nothing  contrary  to  the 
laws  and  liberties  of  the  kingdom.  Their  mildness  angered 
Wycliffe,  who  indignantly  remarked  in  one  of  his  pamphlets 
that  it  could  not  be  otherwise  than  subversive  of  the  laws 
and  liberties  of  the  realm  that  a  foreign  potentate  should 
plunder  it  at  will. 

He  was  perversely  slow  to  suspect  Gaunt  of  less  commend- 
able aims  than  his  own,  and  Gaunt  was  quick  to  make  good 
use  of  the  Schoolman's  trenchant  pen.  In  April,  1374, 
he  was  appointed  by  the  Crown  to  the  living  of  Lutterworth, 
bestowed  upon  him,  not  primarily  because  he  was  a  learned 
and  pious  clerk,  but  rather  as  a  reward  for  his  services  to 
the  government.  The  authorities  took  advantage  of  the 
minority  of  the  regular  patron,  Henry  de  Ferrers,  to  assign 
the  benefice  to  their  nominee,  and  Wycliffe's  enemies  cir- 
culated rumors  that  further  preferments  were  in  store  for  him, 
and  that  he  was  to  be  elevated  to  the  see  of  Worcester  on 
the  death  of  its  occupant,  William  de  Leme. 

The  wrongs  which  patrons  of  benefices  suffered  at  the 
hands  of  the  Pope  through  the  constant  violation  of  the 
Statute  of  Provisors  continued  to  be  the  subject  of  protests 
in  Parliament,  and  finally  it  was  arranged  that  the  matter 
should  be  discussed  at  Bruges  with  the  commissioners  of 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  73 

Gregory  XI.  Accordingly  on  the  26th  of  July,  1374,  John 
Gilbert,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Bangor,  was  made  the  head  of 
the  English  delegation,  with  Wycliffe  as  a  subordinate  mem- 
ber.^ The  outcome  was  discomfiting  to  them.  The  six 
bulls  which  the  Pope  dispatched  in  September,  1375,  while 
deploring  past  irregularities,  gave  no  promise  of  future 
redress.  The  promotion  of  the  Bishop  of  Bangor  was  looked 
upon  as  a  payment  for  the  betrayal  of  the  interests  of  the 
Anglican  Church,  and  Gaunt  was  suspected  of  similar 
treachery  in  his  negotiations  with  France. 

In  order  to  furnish  some  idea  of  the  grievances  that 
were  aired  at  the  conference,  it  is  necessary  to  revert  to  the 
time  of  King  John's  humiliation  at  the  instance  of  Innocent 
III.  After  that  event  the  Holy  See  steadily  drew  to  itself 
the  patronage  of  the  highest  ecclesiastical  ofiices  and  emolu- 
ments in  England,  acting  in  connivance  with  the  reigning 
monarch,  whose  interests  generally  coincided  with  those 
of  the  Pontiff.  "  Were  the  king  of  England  to  petition  for 
an  ass  to  be  made  a  bishop,  we  must  not  refuse  him,"  was  a 
piece  of  sacrilegious  effrontery  attributed  to  Clement  V, 
An  example  of  the  innumerable  abuses  which  sprang 
from  this  sinister  association,  and  from  the  ramifications 
of  the  extortionate  system  and  the  helplessness  of  the 
Anglican  bishops  to  check  it,  is  afforded  by  the  dioce- 
san annals  of  Salisbury.  Here  twenty-eight  out  of  fifty 
prebends  in  the  gift  of  the  Bishop  had  been  provided  for  b}' 
the  Popes,  while  not  more  than  three  of  the  holders  resided 
in  them.  Eight  additional  candidates  were  on  the  waiting 
list  with  the  promise  of  preferment  at  the  first  vacancy. 

1  The  latest  researches  by  Dr.  Workman  show  that  Wycliffe  was  not  a 
member  of  the  official  Conference  at  Bruges  which  settled  the  terms  of  the 
Concordat  with  the  Pope.  He  was  only  there  for  seven  weeks  and  was 
in  no  sense  a  chief  figure.  Bishop  Gilbert  was  practically  supreme,  and 
the  Concordat,  which  was  so  disastrous  for  England,  was  not  determined 
upon  until  1376,  when  the  moving  spirits  were  Simon  Sudbury  and  John  of 
Gaunt.  The  statement  of  Lechler  that  John  of  Gaunt  and  Wycliffe  met  at 
Bruges  is  a  fiction.  Wycliffe  had  finally  left  Bruges  long  before  John  of 
Gaunt  went  there  to  participate  in  the  Conference. 


74        THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

At  length  this  senseless  rapacity  was  restrained  by  the 
English  government,  which  defied  the  Papal  court  at  Avi- 
gnon as  the  head  and  fount  of  unblushing  simony,  "  where  a 
caitiff  who  knows  nothing  and  is  worth  nothing  is  promoted 
to  churches  and  prebends  to  the  value  of  a  thousand  marks." 
The  Pontiff's  hitherto  unquestioned  right  of  nomination  to 
bishoprics  rendered  vacant  by  translation  had  also  been 
wantonly  exercised.  Their  occupants  were  removed  from 
one  see  to  another  as  often  as  possible  in  order  that 
the  usual  fees  and  first-fruits,  i.e.,  the  first  year's  income, 
might  be  collected  from  the  outgoing  and  incoming  prelates. 
The  nominees  were  more  often  than  not  absentees  as  well 
as  foreigners,  content  to  receive  the  revenues  of  offices 
they  had  never  seen.  The  shameful  spectacle  of  these  ad- 
venturers enriching  themselves  out  of  the  treasury  of  the 
national  Church  and  the  funds  gathered  from  the  gifts  of 
the  poor  and  the  faithful  excited  strong  indignation. 
Wanton  avarice  had  reached  its  climax  and  battened  on 
its  ill-gotten  gains  until  the  notorious  evil  sharpened  the 
popular  appetite  for  reform.  Thus,  apart  from  doctrinal 
and  intellectual  developments,  the  Wycliffian  movement 
suited  the  resolution  of  his  countrymen,  exasperated  as  they 
were  by  clerical  parasites  who  drained  the  financial  re- 
sources of  communities  to  which  many  of  them  were  entire 
strangers. 

The  Statute  of  Provisors  of  the  year  1351  was  designed  to 
prevent  the  Pope  from  providing  English  livings  for  foreign 
clerics,  from  making  provisions  for  benefices  during  the 
lifetime  of  the  incumbent,  and  from  reserving  them  for 
Papal  use  and  benefit  while  their  occupancy  was  de- 
layed for  that  purpose.  It  also  prohibited  the  acceptance 
of  Papal  letters  of  provision,  and  vested  the  patronage  thus 
bestowed  in  the  king.  Further,  by  this  Statute  the  free 
election  of  candidates  for  the  higher  offices  reverted  to  the 
ancient  procedure  of  their  choice  by  the  Cathedral  Chapter, 
and  the  dignitaries  thus  chosen  were  allowed  to  have  free 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  75 

presentations  of  the  benefices  under  their  jurisdiction.  The 
fact  that  the  Statute  had  to  be  supplemented  two  years 
later  by  the  first  Statute  of  Praemunire  showed  that  it  had 
failed  to  accomplish  desirable  results.  After  thirteen  years 
more  stringent  legislation  was  passed,  applying  the  inhibi- 
tions of  the  latter  Statute  to  the  Curia,  which  it  boldly 
named.  Finally,  in  1393  the  Great  Statute  of  Praemunire 
subjected  all  appellants  to  Rome  to  the  forfeiture  of  their 
case.  This  succession  of  enactments,  six  in  all,  during  the 
period  from  1350  to  1393,  proved  the  ineffectiveness  of  the 
various  measures  designed  to  end  the  Avignon  tyranny. 
But  if  such  means  did  not  avail  to  abolish  foreign  eccle- 
siastical control,  they  supplied  the  precedents  which  gave 
color  to  Henry  the  Eighth's  plea  that  he  was  acting  within  the 
law  when  he  destroyed  the  independence  of  the  Church  and 
monopolized  for  the  Crown  and  the  nobility  the  estates  and 
incomes  hitherto  shared  with  the  Papacy. 

After  what  has  been  said  it  is  not  inexplicable  that  the 
Commission  of  Bruges  should  have  truckled  to  the  Pope  and 
the  king,  or  that  its  negotiations  were  as  fruitless  as  the 
English  court  no  doubt  intended  they  should  be.  The  claims 
of  corrupted  usage  continued  to  fetter  the  liberties  of  Angli- 
canism, and  the  few  concessions  agreed  upon  were  only 
meant  to  save  the  face  of  the  commissioners.  The  Bishop 
of  Bangor  was  appointed  to  certain  benefices  by  means  of 
the  very  "provisions"  he  had  been  instructed  to  denounce; 
Wycliffe  remained  merely  a  parish  priest  in  rank,  and  held 
the  living  at  Lutterworth  until  his  death.  Yet  he  was  promi- 
nent in  the  country,  and  his  alliance  with  Gaunt  kept  him 
in  the  political  arena.  The  declining  health  of  Edward  III 
and  the  death  of  the  Black  Prince  made  the  Duke  of  Lan- 
caster supreme,  while  his  reactionary  influence  served  to 
undo  the  legislation  of  the  "Good  Parliament."  Wycliffe 
resided  at  Lutterworth  and  at  Oxford,  making  frequent  jour- 
neys to  the  capital,  where  by  this  time  he  was  equally  well 
known  as  a  trusted  adviser  of  the  Crown  and  as  a  preacher 


76        THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

whose  ardent  eloquence  fitted  him  to  inspire  and  direct  public 
opinion. 

His  labors  during  this  period  were  only  exceeded  by  those 
which  followed  between  the  years  of  1378  and  1382,  when 
his  efforts  for  reform  literally  consumed  him.  They  seem 
to  have  been  prompted  by  the  belief  that  physical  decline 
could  not  long  be  deferred,  and  that  what  he  had  to  do 
must  be  done  quickly.  Within  six  or  seven  years  he  not  only 
wrote  all  his  English  works,  of  which,  according  to  Shirley's 
catalogue,  there  are  sixty-five,^  but  revised  or  completed  at 
least  half  of  his  Latin  writings,  of  which  the  same  authority 
enumerates  ninety-seven,  and  these  herculean  tasks  were 
augmented  by  his  share  in  translating  the  Bible.  He  also 
originated  the  pamphlet  as  a  weapon  of  controversy.  The 
Scholastic  doctor,  esteemed  by  his  contemporaries  as  excel- 
ling in  profundity  and  subtlety,  now  doffed  the  cumber- 
some armor  of  abstruse  propositions  couched  in  syllogistic 
forms  and  a  dead  language.  His  tracts,  addressed  to  fellow 
citizens  in  their  own  speech,  were  clear  in  substance  and 
style,  with  many  a  racy  aside  and  pungent  sally  which  dis- 
closed in  the  writer  a  union  of  rare  qualities  of  heart  and 
brain.  They  were  terse,  pithy,  incisive,  vehement  in  feel- 
ing; not  without  antics  in  which  the  most  learned  were 
capable  of  indulging  on  occasion;  and  relieved  and  em- 
phasized by  the  play  of  sarcasm,  banter,  and  raillery.  Some 
of  these  broadsides  were  not  more  than  a  couple  of  pages 
in  length,  yet  in  that  brief  compass  they  frequently  conveyed 
a  masterly  exposition  bearing  directly  upon  the  matter  in 
hand. 

The  lack  of  other  literary  models  than  the  Bible  and  a 
few  Latin  authors  threw  him  back  upon  his  own  originality. 
The  classics  were  preserved  in  the  libraries  of  St.  Albans, 
Glastonbury,  York,  and  Durham.  Richard  Aungervyle, 
better  known  as  Richard  de  Bury,  author  of  the  "  Philobib- 

1  The  English  are  much  inferior  to  the  Latin  works  both  in  bulk  and  im- 
portance. 


JOHN    WYCLIFFE  77 

lion,"  which  dealt  with  his  favorite  pursuit  of  book  collect- 
ing, was  the  owner  of  a  great  library  secured  at  infinite 
pains.  He  bequeathed  it  to  Durham  College,  a  munificent 
endowment  indeed,  since  such  libraries  were  rare  before  the 
time  of  Duke  Humphrey.  Peter  Lombard's  "Sentences" 
and  Gratian's  "Decretum"  were  the  better  known  reposi- 
tories of  learning,  and  Wycliffe's  acquaintance  with  St. 
Augustine  and  St.  Chrysostom  was  probably  due  to  Gratian. 
No  interpreter  of  Wycliffe's  writings  can  rate  the  Re- 
former an  optimist.  The  world  he  saw  was  sorely  distressed  ; 
the  inconstancy  of  human  things  ever  inclined  them  toward 
the  great  abyss;  the  common  people  were  bad,  the  civil 
rulers  worse,  the  clergy,  and  especially  the  higher  ecclesiastics, 
worst  of  all.  Perilous  times  had  come,  in  which  offenses 
abounded.  Their  mischief  was  the  more  vexatious  by  con- 
trast, for  they  directly  followed  a  period  of  superabundant 
energy  which  once  bade  fair  to  rejuvenate  society.  All  author- 
ities were  now  recreant  in  that  they  had  forsaken  Christ,  sur- 
rendered to  human  maxims,  and  become  the  slaves  of  tyranni- 
cal greed  and  caprice.  The  following  quotation  from  one  of 
his  sermons  shows  how  far  short  of  Wycliffe's  expectations 
Christendom  had  fallen,  and  how  freely  he  reprimanded  the 
religious  dearth  and  coldness  of  the  age.  "  It  is  as  clear  as  day 
that  we  so-called  Christians  make  the  creatures  to  be  our 
gods.  The  proud  or  ambitious  man  worships  a  likeness  of 
that  which  is  in  heaven  (Exodus  xx.  4),  because,  like  Lucifer, 
he  loves,  above  all  things,  promotion  or  dignity  in  one  form 
or  another.  The  covetous  man  worships  a  likeness  of  that 
which  is  in  the  earth  beneath.  And  although,  arrayed  in 
sheep's  clothing,  we  hypocritically  confess  that  our  highest 
of  all  service  is  in  the  worship  of  God,  yet  it  would  very  well 
become  us  carefully  to  inquire  whether  we  faithfully  carry 
out  this  confession  in  our  actions.  Let  us  then  search  and 
examine  whether  we  keep  the  first  and  greatest  command- 
ment, and  worship  God  above  all.  Do  we  not  bend  and 
bow  ourselves  before  the  rich  of  this  world  more  with  the 


78    THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

view  of  being  rewarded  by  them  with  worldy  honor  or  tem- 
poral advantage,  than  for  the  sake  of  their  moral  character 
or  spiritual  help?  Does  not  the  covetous  man  stretch  out 
now  his  arms  and  now  his  hands  to  grasp  the  gold,  and  does 
he  not  pay  court  untiringly  to  the  men  who  have  it  in  their 
power  to  hinder  or  to  help  his  gains  ?  Does  not  the  sensual 
man,  as  though  he  were  making  an  offering  to  the  idol 
Moloch,  cast  himself  down  with  his  whole  body  before  the 
harlot  ?  Does  he  not  put  upon  such  persons  worldly  honor  ? 
Does  he  not  offer  to  them  the  incense  of  purses  of  gold,  in 
order  to  scent  the  flow  of  sensual  delight  with  the  sweetest 
perfumes?  Does  he  not  lavish  upon  his  mistress  gift  upon 
gift,  till  she  is  more  wonderfully  bedizened  with  various 
ornaments  than  an  image  of  the  Holy  Virgin  ?  And  does  not 
all  this  show  that  we  love  the  flesh,  the  world,  and  the  devil 
more  than  God,  in  that  we  are  more  careful  to  keep  their 
commandments  than  His?  What  violence  do  we  hear  of 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  suffering  in  our  times  (Matthew 
xi.  12),  while  the  gates  of  hell  are  bolted?  But  alas !  broad 
and  well-trodden  is  the  way  which  leadeth  to  hell,  and  narrow 
and  forsaken  the  way  which  leadeth  to  heaven !  This  it  is 
which  makes  men,  for  lack  of  faith,  love  what  is  seen  and 
temporal  more  than  the  blessings  which  they  cannot  see, 
and  to  have  more  delight  in  buildings,  dress,  and  ornaments, 
and  other  things  of  art  and  man's  invention,  than  in  the 
uncreated  archetypes  of  heaven."  ^ 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  justice  of  this  whole- 
sale condemnation,  its  sincerity  is  beyond  dispute.  Self- 
deception  is  not  dishonesty,  though  it  is  often  mistaken  for 
it,  and  the  fact  that  a  man's  opinions  and  practices  do  not 
always  square  with  his  words  does  not  necessarily  prove 
him  to  be  a  charlatan.  We  may  be  sure,  however,  that 
history  is  not  written  in  such  pronounced  colors  as  black 

^  Liber  Mandatorum  (Decalogus):  c.  15,  fol.  136,  col.  I;  fol.  137,  col.  2. 
Quoted  by  Lechler,  "John  Wycliffe  and  his  English  Precursors" ;  pp.  303- 
304. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  79 

and  white,  and  certainly  not  in  black  alone,  but  in  the  half 
tints  and  manifold  shades  which  are  necessary  to  depict  the 
varieties  of  human  character.  The  unqualified  terms  of 
Wycliffe's  homily  were  employed  for  the  sake  of  mental 
convenience  as  well  as  moral  correction,  and  those  who 
are  given  to  the  use  of  such  terms,  as  he  was,  generally  have 
in  mind  the  increase  of  the  good  and  the  defeat  of  the  evil 
in  their  surroundings. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  QUARREL  WITH  THE  PAPACY 


81 


Had  it  not  been  the  obstinate  perverseness  of  our  prelates  against 
the  divine  and  admirable  spirit  of  Wyclif  to  suppress  him  as  a  schis- 
matic and  innovator,  perhaps  neither  the  Bohemian  Hus  and  Jerom,  no, 
nor  the  name  of  Luther  or  of  Calvin,  had  been  ever  known :  the  glory 
of  reforming  all  our  neighbors  had  been  completely  ours. 

Milton,  Areopagitica. 


82 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   QUARREL    WITH   THE   PAPACY 

Wycliffe  and  Church  institutions  —  WilHam  Courtenay,  Bishop  of 
London  —  Wycliffe's  trial  in  1377  —  Gregory  XI's  five  bulls  against 
him  —  Second  trial  in  1378  —  Wycliffe's  polemic  against  the  friars  — 
Sketch  of  rise,  development,  and  decadence  of  monasticism  —  Con- 
trast between  monks  and  friars  —  Popular  accusations  against  the 
latter  —  The  Great  Schism  and  its  effect  on  Wycliffe  —  His  defense 
of  Gaimt  —  His  change  of  attitude  towards  the  Papacy  —  Wycliffe's 
doctrine  of  the  Church  —  His  teaching  upon  Transubstantiation  — 
Development  of  the  dogma  —  Wycliffe's  friends  forsake  him. 

I 

Wycliffe  was  in  all  respects  a  typical  Englishman,  inde- 
pendent in  thought,  jealous  for  the  honor  of  his  country  and 
consistent  in  his  patriotism.  He  was  seldom  wanting  in  self- 
confidence  ;  a  maker  rather  than  a  creature  of  precedent, 
with  a  high  spirit  unaffected  by  the  external  circumstances 
which  sway  weaker  characters.  His  practical  bent  made 
him  impatient  of  dreams  and  ecstasies.  As  to  his  rank  in 
learning,  he  was  "in  theology  most  eminent,  in  philosophy 
second  to  none,  in  scholastic  exercises  incomparable."  ^ 

The  conscious  authority  of  these  distinctions  invested  his 
bearing  with  an  austerity  age  did  not  perceptibly  soften,  and 
lent  his  temper  a  brusqueness  that  tolerated  no  dallyings. 
He  lived  near  enough  to  conscience  to  be  discontented 
with  things  as  they  were,  and  when  the  test  was  applied  he 
passed  into  social  and  political  retirement  rather  than  sur- 
render his  convictions.  His  integrity  arose  out  of  a  solicitude 
for  what  he  conceived  to  be  spiritual  religion.     Excessive  care 

1  Bishop  Mandell  Creighton  :  "Historical  Essays  and  Reviews"  ;  pp.  173- 
174. 

83 


84    THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

for  received  dogmas  did  not  deaden  his  moral  sense;  he 
impeached  any  ecclesiastical  ascendency  that  depended  upon 
resistance  to  the  lawful  authority  of  the  State,  and  encoun- 
tered no  adversaries  sufficiently  strong  to  silence  or  even 
deter  him.  He  was  positive,  militant,  and  eager  for  direct 
action  because  apparently  doubtful  concerning  any  self- 
righting  principle  in  human  development.  While  faithful 
to  his  own  beliefs,  he  was  not  always  just  toward  antagonistic 
views,  and  in  the  heat  of  controversy  sometimes  forgot  that 
unbalanced  truth  is  itself  untrue.  He  was  far  more  willing 
to  be  hurried  than  idle ;  the  familiar  German  proverb, 
"Ohne  Hast,  ohne  Rast,"  was  scarcely  descriptive  of  a  career 
the  moderation  of  which  was  altogether  disproportionate 
to  its  restlessness  and  resolution.  These  traits  were  displayed 
to  the  full  in  his  disputes  with  the  Ceesarean  clergy,  the  friars, 
the  Papacy,  and  finally,  in  regard  to  the  doctrine  of  Transub- 
stantiation.  Little  allowance  was  made  by  the  stern  re- 
monstrant for  the  inevitable  shortcomings  of  human  nature 
that  found  expression  in  these  organizations  and  this  dogma. 
The  refinements  of  analysis  which  can  detect  potential  good 
in  some  present  evils  were  beyond  him ;  in  brief,  sailing  close 
to  the  wind  was  for  him  an  impossible  art.  Thus  one  of  the 
exliilarating  aspects  of  his  record  was  its  moral  intrepidity, 
which,  apart  from  his  connection  with  John  of  Gaunt,  was 
seldom  deflected  from  desirable  ends. 

The  denunciations  and  the  virulence  of  his  quarrels  grew 
as  the  Csesarean  clergy  gave  place  to  the  friars,  the  friars 
to  the  Papacy,  and  the  Papacy  to  Transubstantiation.^ 
He  found  abundant  incentive  in  existing  conditions ;  Euro- 
pean politics  were  suffering  from  the  consequences  of  the 
later  Crusades,  which  had  lapsed  into  ruffianism,  leaving  small 
choice  between  the  conduct  of  the  infidels  who  held  the  Holy 
City  and  that  of  the  adventurers  who  strove  to  wrest  it  from 
them.     France  lay  broken  and  bleeding  beneath  the  weight 

1  The  question  has  been  raised  whether  or  not  Wycliffe's  attack  on  the 
friars  preceded  that  upon  the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  85 

of  the  first  half  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War.  In  Italy  and 
Germany  the  conflicts  between  the  Empire  and  the  Papacy 
had  shaken  the  foundations  of  society,  and  their  cities  were 
overrun  with  a  rabble  of  mercenaries  and  free-lances.  Eng- 
land had  been  fortunate  enough  to  escape  the  distractions  of 
civil  strife,  nevertheless  her  social  state  was  wretched  beyond 
words.  Compared  with  those  of  the  Continent,  her  pro- 
vincial towns  were  small  and  insignificant ;  outside  their 
closely  guarded  walls  and  noisome  precincts  the  peasants  of 
the  shires  groveled  before  their  lords,  for  whom  they  were 
hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water.  Yet  there  still 
smoldered  in  these  men  the  ashes  of  their  fathers'  wonted 
fires  ;  ashes  which  had  heat  enough  left  in  them  to  kindle  the 
conflagration  that  threatened  to  devour  the  ruling  powers 
at  the  time  of  the  Peasants'  Revolt. 

When  the  Lancastrian  faction  forced  William  of  Wykeham 
to  resign  the  Chancellor's  seals,  his  deprivation  and  at- 
tempted punishment  led  to  further  recriminations  and  im- 
peachments, and  the  clergy  made  Wykeham's  cause  their 
own.  However  desirable  Wycliffe's  abstention  from  politics 
might  have  been,  it  was  now  practically  impossible :  he 
could  not  have  retreated  without  loss  of  honor  and 
injury  to  his  cause.^  Moreover,  his  doubts  and  question- 
ings, as  well  as  his  beliefs,  were  no  longer  latent.  Once 
released  from  the  habit  of  absolute  submission  and  obedience, 
they  proceeded  apace,  and  their  radical  tendencies  affected 
matters  of  public  moment  rather  than  scholastic  discourse. 
He  openly  avowed  in  London  churches  the  tenets  of  dis- 
endowment  and  of  the  sanctity  of  clerical  poverty  which  he 
had  formerly  taught  in  the  University.  Rumors  of  his  sen- 
timents were  verified  by  his  actual  declarations,  and  his 
writings  were  closely  scrutinized  for  further  evidences  of  his 
disaffection    by    those    whose    practices    were    unsparingly 

1  Wycliffe's  connection  with  John  of  Gaunt  might  also  have  arisen  from 
the  fact  that  the  manor  of  Wycliffe  was  in  the  'honor  of  Richmond,'  one  of 
Gaunt's  fiefs. 


86        THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

assailed,    and    also    by    others    whose    honest   convictions 
opposed  his  own. 

Among  the  latter  was  William  Courtenay,  the  aristo- 
cratic Bishop  of  London,  a  member  of  the  family  of  the  Earls 
of  Devon  and,  on  his  mother's  side,  a  direct  descendant 
of  Edward  I.  This  prelate  forced  the  hand  of  the  tem- 
perate Archbishop  Sudbury,  whom  he  virtually  supplanted 
as  leader  of  the  clerical  party,  and  Wycliffe  was  summoned 
early  in  1377  either  before  Convocation,  or  more  probably, 
according  to  Bishop  Creighton,  before  the  Archbishop  as  his 
Ordinary,  to  answer  charges  of  heresy,  which  had  been  pre- 
ferred against  him  for  his  opinion  concerning  the  wealth  of 
the  Church.  On  February  nineteenth  of  that  year  the  Re- 
former appeared  at  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  to  defend  his 
position,  accompanied  by  four  friars  of  Oxford,  and  under 
the  escort  of  John  of  Gaunt  and  Lord  Henry  Percy,  who 
eleven  days  previously  had  been  made  Marshal  of  England  as 
the  price  of  his  support  of  the  Lancastrians  and  in  place  of 
the  Earl  of  March,  who  was  exiled  to  Calais.  The  dramatic 
but  useless  scene  which  followed  has  vividly  impressed  itself 
upon  the  imagination  of  later  generations.  Gaunt,  who  was 
detested  by  the  freemen  of  the  city  for  his  cupidity  and 
arrogance  no  less  than  for  the  plottings  and  chicaneries  of 
his  followers,  stood  at  WyclifFe's  side  throughout  the  stormy 
interview,  fuming  and  threatening  that  he  would  pull  down 
the  pride  of  all  the  bishops  in  England.  He  was  aware  that 
Wycliffe  was  regarded  as  the  instrument  of  his  schemes  for 
the  confiscation  of  Church  oflSces  and  revenues.  Sudbury 
and  Courtenay  were  not  intolerant  prelates,  but  rather 
ecclesiastical  politicians,  whose  decision  to  resist  the  Duke's 
measures  can  be  ascribed  to  their  vigilance  on  behalf  of  the 
menaced  privileges  w^hich  they  held  essential  to  the  existence 
and  standing  of  the  Church.  Percy's  insolent  behavior 
exasperated  the  spectators  crowding  the  aisles  of  the  ancient 
church  and  the  adjacent  streets,  and  the  disturbance  which 
attended  the  passage  to  the  Lady  Chapel  annoyed  Courtenay, 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  87 

who  declared,  had  he  known  beforehand  that  Percy  would 
act  the  master  in  the  Cathedral,  he  would  have  barred  his 
entrance.  The  Duke,  blind  with  rage,  replied  for  his  re- 
tainer that  he  should  do  as  he  pleased.  While  prince  and 
prelate  exchanged  defiances,  Wycliffe  seems  to  have  calmly 
awaited  the  hearing.  Even  Courtenay,  the  most  gifted  and 
resolute  of  his  foes,  whose  opposition  finally  crushed  the 
Wycliffian  movement,  sank  into  comparative  insignificance 
when  contrasted  with  the  last  great  Schoolman  of  Europe, 
the  first  clerk  of  Oxford  and  the  noblest  and  most  astute 
thinker  left  in  a  decadent  and  reactionary  age.  Lechler's 
idealized  description  portrays  him  as  "  a  tall,  thin  figure,  clad 
in  a  long,  light  gown  of  black,  with  a  girdle  about  his  body ; 
his  head,  adorned  with  a  full,  flowing  beard,  exhibiting  fea- 
tures keen  and  sharply  cut,  his  eye  clear  and  penetrating,  his 
lips  firmly  closed,  in  token  of  resolution  —  the  whole  man 
wearing  an  aspect  of  lofty  earnestness,  and  replete  with 
dignity  and  character."  ^ 

The  issue  between  the  two  parties  was  sharply  drawn  and 
thorough  examination  was  desirable,  since  the  justice  of  the 
case  was  by  no  means  confined  to  Gaunt' s  faction,  but  the 
decorum  befitting  so  grave  a  trial  was  altogether  absent. 
Heated  rejoinders  and  personal  vilifications  ended  any  pre- 
tense to  judicial  dignity,  and  were  so  freely  used  that  Gaunt, 
overmatched  verbally,  resorted  to  threats  of  physical  vio- 
lence. The  Londoners,  who  loved  neither  Courtenay  nor 
the  Duke,  had  already  been  aroused  by  the  introduction  of  a 
bill  into  Parliament  on  that  very  afternoon  which  proposed 
to  deprive  the  city  of  its  municipal  rights  and  vest  its  govern- 
ment in  an  ofiicial  chosen  by  the  Court.  This  news  created 
such  a  tumult  against  Lancaster  that  the  sitting  was  sus- 
pended, while  in  the  riot  which  ensued  he  was  compelled  to 
flee,  and  barely  escaped  with  his  life.  The  enraged  citizens, 
disappointed  of  their  prey,  sacked  his  Palace  of  the  Savoy, 
refusing  to  desist  till  Bishop  Courtenay  interposed  to  avert 

1  "John  Wycliffe  and  his  EngUsh  Precursors"  ;   p.  159. 


88        THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

their  further  vengeance.  The  unexpected  deHverance  of 
WycUffe  convinced  the  writer  of  the  Enghsh  Chronicle  that 
the  entire  aflFair  was  a  device  of  the  devil  to  protect  his  elect 
servant. 

Courtenay  now  had  recourse  to  the  Holy  See,  which  re- 
quired little  instigation  from  him  to  interfere  in  English  affairs, 
and  on  May  22,  1377,  Gregory  XI,  who  had  just  restored 
the  Papacy  to  Rome,  promulgated  there  in  the  church  of 
St.  Maria  Maggiore  five  bulls  against  Wycliffe,  which  he 
dispatched  to  the  king,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the 
Bishop  of  London,  and  the  University  of  Oxford.  Three  of 
these  bulls  were  jointly  directed  to  the  Primate  and  the 
Bishop,  and  the  other  two  to  the  king  and  the  University  re- 
spectively. Eighteen  erroneous  articles  were  transcribed 
from  Wycliffe's  writings,  all  of  which,  with  one  exception,  were 
correctly  quoted  from  his  treatise  "De  Dominio  Civili." 
They  were  condemned  as  theses  and  their  conclusions  ex- 
pounded and  repudiated,  the  Pontiff  affirming  with  truth  that 
their  substance  was  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  Marsiglio, 
the  advocate  of  the  imperial  cause  against  John  XXII.  The 
doctrine  of  evangelical  poverty,  which  Wycliffe  set  forth 
against  the  material  magnificence  of  the  Avignon  Court,  to- 
gether with  his  theory  of  lordship,  supplied  the  material 
which  now  came  under  ofiicial  censure.  The  bull  ad- 
dressed to  the  University  chided  its  members  for  suf- 
fering "tares  to  spring  up  among  the  pure  wheat  of  their 
glorious  field";  the  one  to  the  king  prayed  him  to  grant 
the  Papal  commissioners  his  favor  and  protection  in  the 
discharge  of  their  duty.  Sudbury  and  Courtenay  were 
reproved  as  "slothfully  negligent,  insomuch  that  latent 
motions  and  attempts  of  the  enemy  are  perceived  at  Rome 
before  they  are  opposed  in  England."  Plenary  powers  were 
granted  to  the  bishops  to  ascertain  whether  these  pestiferous 
opinions  were  actually  taught  by  Wycliffe,  and  the  Pope  di- 
rected that  "the  said  John"  should  be  arrested  and  impris- 
oned in  safe  custody  until  further  commands  were  received. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  89 

The  edicts  reached  England  at  an  inopportune  moment. 
Edward  III  died  on  June  twenty -first  of  that  year;  the 
first  ParUament  of  Richard  II  at  once  manifested  a  strong 
animus  against  the  encroachments  of  the  Papacy,  and  the 
regency  of  the  Princess  of  Wales  was  controlled  by  political 
exigencies  which  for  the  time  made  Wycliffe  the  leader  of  the 
nation  at  large.  He  was  consulted  by  Parliament  as  to 
"  whether  the  realm  might  not  legitimately  stop  the  export  of 
gold  to  Rome,  considering  the  necessities  of  her  defense," 
and  promptly  answered  in  the  affirmative.^  "The  Pope," 
he  argued,  "  cannot  demand  treasure  except  by  way  of  alms 
and  by  the  rule  of  charity,  but  all  charity  beginneth  at  home, 
for  our  fathers  endowed  not  the  Church  at  large,  but  the 
Church  of  England."  The  document  concluded  with  the 
plea  "  that  the  goods  of  the  Church  should  be  prudently  dis- 
tributed to  the  glory  of  God,  putting  aside  the  avarice  of 
prelates  and  princes." 

The  last  clause  annoyed  those  who  had  predatory  pur- 
poses of  their  own,  and  he  was  enjoined  by  the  young  king 
and  the  Council  to  keep  silence.  But  Parliament  and 
people  were  so  enthusiastically  in  favor  of  Wycliffe  that, 
while  John  of  Gaunt  was  excluded  from  the  Council  of 
his  nephew,  any  effort  to  indict  the  Reformer  would  have 
been  an  attempt  to  indict  the  nation.  It  is  not  surprising 
that  the  higher  clergy  acted  circumspectly  at  this  juncture, 
or  that  the  University  doubted  whether  the  Papal  bull 
could  be  received.  The  Archbishop's  request  that  Wyc- 
liffe should  appear  before  the  Commissioners  in  February, 
1378,  was  extremely  courteous  in  tone,  and  made  no 
mention  of  the  severe  measures  the  Pope  had  commanded 
in   the   event   of    his   resistance.     He    came    to    Lambeth, 

J  The  export  of  gold  from  England  by  the  religious  orders  was  a  constant 
drain  on  the  nation.  An  example  is  furnished  by  the  forty  English  de- 
pendencies of  the  French  Abbey  of  Cluny,  which  in  Wycliffe's  time  re- 
mitted annually  to  the  latter  place  a  sum  equivalent  to  $300,000  or  more 
in  modern  money.  There  were  many  other  instances  of  this  continual 
exaction. 


90        THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

but  owing  to  the  pleas  of  the  Princess  Dowager  of  Wales 
and  the  clamor  of  the  populace,  the  conclave  was  speedily 
dissolved.  Courtenay  withdrew  his  clericals,  who  were 
probably  much  relieved  to  be  freed  from  their  thankless 
task.  Many  of  the  Oxford  doctors  were  in  sympathy 
with  Wycliffe's  heresies;  even  his  enemies  hesitated  to  lay 
hands  on  an  influential  subject  at  the  behest  of  a  foreign 
ruler,  and  during  the  crisis,  the  ulterior  aims  of  politicians 
and  the  patriotic  pride  of  citizens  united  to  sustain  the 
Reformer  as  the  upholder  of  national  honor.  Walsingham, 
chronicler  of  St.  Albans,  mourned  over  such  a  dearth  of  zeal, 
and  chided  the  cowardice  of  the  bishops  who  were  as  "  reeds 
shaken  by  the  wind.  Their  speech  became  as  soft  oil,  to  the 
loss  of  their  own  dignity  and  the  injury  of  the  Church.  They 
were  struck  with  such  a  terror  that  you  would  fancy  them  to 
be  'as  a  man  that  heareth  not,  in  whose  mouth  there  is  no 
reproof.' "  This  jeremiad  provided  the  funeral  baked  meats 
for  the  anti-Wycliffians,  whose  personal  attacks  on  the 
Reformer  virtually  ended  in  the  important  year  of  1378, 
when  the  Great  Schism  turned  the  attention  of  bishops  and 
statesmen  to  heresiarchs  of  larger  magnitude,  and  to  the 
evils  that  arose  out  of  their  conduct. 


II 

Wycliffe's  emphatic  nationalism  developed  his  first  heresies 
round  the  grievances  of  the  State,  but  he  passed  on  to  dis- 
cover in  Scripture  and  Apostolic  custom  a  firm  basis  for  his 
remonstrance  against  the  friars.  His  former  sentiments 
toward  their  self-imposed  poverty  and  sanctity  were  respect- 
ful and  affectionate.  He  spoke  of  them  as  "those  evangelical 
men  very  dear  to  God,"  and  his  early  distinction  between 
them  and  the  wealthy  monastic  orders  (religiosi  possessionati) 
was  accompanied  by  an  unmeasured  rebuke  of  the  indolence, 
mercenary  disposition,  and  pride  of  the  monks.  Historians 
are  generally  agreed  that  it  was  not  till  the  year  1380,  when 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  91 

first  he  attacked  the  doctrine  of  the  Mass,  that  he  became 
embroiled  with  the  friars.^  Be  this  as  it  may,  his  aversion 
was  not  pronounced  so  long  as  he  recognized  that  the  early 
Franciscans  had  been  established  for  the  edification  of  the 
Church.  But  when  he  witnessed  with  all  observers  their 
inconceivably  rapid  degeneration  his  references  ceased  to 
be  eulogistic;  in  1378  he  protested  against  those  practices 
which  were  divorced  from  their  vows,  and  after  1381  he 
was  their  relentless  opponent.  This  revulsion  was  the  more 
complete  because  of  his  previous  regard  for  their  excellen- 
cies. His  unbending  nature  could  not  forgive  their  open 
derelictions,  and  these  profoundly  influenced  his  attitude 
toward  clerical  authority  and  doctrinal  orthodoxy.  As 
monasticism  in  general  was  thus  the  second  important 
factor  in  his  controversies  with  the  Church,  a  word  of  explana- 
tion concerning  the  origin  and  progress  of  the  various  orders 
will  enable  us  better  to  understand  their  relation  to  medieval 
ecclesiasticism  and  to  Wycliffe. 

Monasticism  arose  in  the  Orient,  and  was  common  to 
antiquity  as  well  as  to  modern  times;  to  Buddhism  and 
Mohammedanism,  as  well  as  to  Christianity.  In  the  third 
and  fourth  centuries  the  deserts  of  Egypt  and  Syria  abounded 
with  hermits  and  anchorites,  who  emulated  the  rigor  and 
followed  the  precepts  of  St.  Anthony  and  St.  Pachomius. 
The  former  was  the  first  Christian  monk,  and  admittedly 
the  father  and  prototype  of  Christian  monasticism;  the 
latter,  its  organizer,  who  founded  nine  retreats  with  three 
thousand  inmates  and  drew  up  rules  for  their  guidance  in 
fraternity  life.  Pachomius'  cenobitical  rules  were  made  still 
more  stringent  by  Basil  the  Great  in  Cappadocia.  When  the 
system  entered  the  West,  it  received  a  practical  impulse  and 
flourished  under  better  forms  than  in  its  original  home. 
Benedictine  houses  and  congregations  arose  spontaneously, 
with  leaders  of  piety  and  personal  gifts,  whose  work  was 
adopted,  regulated,  and  utilized  by  the  inclusive  policy  of  the 

1  Bishop  Mandell  Creighton :   "Historical  Essays  and  Reviews"  ;  p.  192. 


92    THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

Holy  See.  The  fundamental  laws  which  governed  all  alike 
were  labor,  poverty,  obedience,  and  chastity ;  beneath  their 
sway  monasticism  fixed  the  standards  and  absorbed  the 
forces  of  the  Church,  her  doctrine  and  her  devotion.  Not- 
withstanding the  fact  that  by  Wycliffe's  time  the  virtues  and 
achievements  of  the  system  had  passed  into  decline  and  could 
no  longer  overcome  the  self-assertion  of  the  pagan  world,  its 
earlier  regime  had  protected  an  immature  civilization,  and 
was  useful  in  the  reduction  of  its  brutal  tendencies.  The 
monastic  cells  enshrined  the  asceticisms  and  prayers  of 
innumerable  lovers  of  God  whose  hard  pitiless  life  was  illumi- 
nated by  those  emotions  and  meditations  which  are  the  re- 
verberations of  eternity  within  the  human  spirit,  and  their 
visions  of  infinitude  and  holiness  are  now  reflected  in  some 
of  the  choicest  devotional  literature.  Cloistral  life  in  its  best 
periods  furnished  a  center  for  the  spiritual  aspirations  of 
mankind,  and  protected  them  against  a  Church  too  often 
secularized  in  heart  and  soul  and  a  world  filled  with  folly, 
lust,  and  cruelty.  In  addition,  the  first  monks  were  agricul- 
turalists whose  holdings  were  models  of  thrift  and  industry. 
They  did  for  the  rural  provinces  a  work  similar  to  that  done 
by  the  trade  guilds  for  the  cities  and  towns.  The  regulars 
were  more  than  recluses  occupying  retreats  where  their 
beautiful  structures,  clustering  around  a  Norman  or  Early 
English  church,  arose  by  the  side  of  some  quiet  stream  en- 
circled by  woods  and  meads.  Nor  did  they  spend  their 
entire  time  in  a  round  of  ritualistic  offices  while  they 
depended  on  inherited  or  contributed  means  for  support. 
They  cleared  the  land  of  bracken  and  bramble,  drained  and 
tilled  it,  dug  the  fishponds,  reared  the  barns  which  housed 
the  harvests  of  an  erstwhile  wilderness,  and  built  the  fanes 
they  filled  with  psalmodies.  Their  economic  and  religious 
value  for  the  half-starved,  ignorant  peasantry  was  very  con- 
siderable. This  pioneer  work  taught  the  rustics  to  have  some 
care  for  their  bodies  and  homes,  and  the  monks  further  in- 
structed them  in  respect  to  their  souls'  welfare.     A  colonizing 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  93 

habit  and  a  communistic  life  were  the  focus  for  missionary 
efforts,  in  which  educational  provisions  and  medical  dis- 
pensaries were  included.  Hospitality  was  a  sacred  duty, 
embracing  all  ranks  and  conditions.  The  vestiges  of  art 
which  survived  that  stormy  interregnum  were  preserved 
in  the  monasteries.  They  were  the  treasure  houses  for 
the  traditions  and  examples  of  a  former  learning,  and  the 
sacred  books  and  the  writings  of  the  Fathers  were  kept 
intact  in  their  libraries  and  copied  in  their  scriptoria. 

But  the  institution  which  was  comparatively  irreproach- 
able in  the  tenth  century  was  questionable  in  the  fourteenth  : 
later  monasticism  had  forsaken  some  of  its  healthy  occupa- 
tions, and  was  no  longer  kept  pure  by  sacrificial  toil.  It  in- 
curred the  adverse  judgments  of  such  loyal  Catholics  as  St. 
Bonaventure,  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna,  and  the  great  Gerson 
himself.^  The  details  of  its  decadence  are  too  lengthy  for 
recital  here,  nor  do  the  learned  and  apologetic  works  of  such 
writers  as  Cardinal  Gasquet  ^  deal  as  fully  as  could  be  desired 
with  the  ofl[icial  arraignments  of  the  regular  clergy  during 
the  four  centuries  preceding  the  Reformation.  The  state- 
ments therein  contained  are  explicit  and  conclusive,  and  the 
Cardinal's  explanations  are  characterized  by  a  partisanship 
which  the  careful  student  is  bound  to  take  into  consideration. 
On  the  other  hand,  Thorold  Rogers'  description  of  the  later 
monasteries  as  "dens  of  gluttony  and  vice"  is  entirely  too 
severe.  Abandoned  wickedness  was  prevalent  in  some  quar- 
ters, but  it  was  the  exception  and  not  the  rule.  Where  the 
charges  of  immorality  are  true,  as  are  those  given  in  the 
painstaking  accounts  of  Dr.  H.  C.  Lea,  they  are  likely  to  be 
misleading  unless  regarded  in  relation  to  the  age  in  which  the 
offenses  were  committed.     The  restraints  and  licenses  of  pub- 

1  John  Gerson  (1363-1429),  French  scholar  and  divine,  Chancellor  of  the 
University  of  Paris  and  leading  spirit  in  the  Ecumenical  Councils  of  Pisa 
and  Constance.  He  labored  to  spiritualize  university  life,  reform  the  clergy, 
and  end  the  Church  schism,  and  also  to  abolish  scholastic  subtleties  from 
the  university  curriculum. 

'  The  Head  of  the  Benedictines  in  England,  elevated  to  the  Sacred  Col- 
lege on  May  25,  1914. 


94        THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

lie  opinion  were  felt  even  in  the  cloister ;  its  devotees  were  not 
all  of  a  superior  sort ;  to  a  great  extent  they  represented  the 
social  conditions  from  which  they  had  been  transferred, 
and  they  should  not  be  condemned  without  reference  to 
current  practices,  which,  although  they  do  not  excuse,  help 
to  explain  the  failure  of  religious  professions. 

Sporadic  attacks  of  sensuality  were  not  the  real  causes 
which  led  to  the  decline  of  monasticism.  The  system  ceased 
to  live  because  it  had  forsaken  its  first  love  and  lay  en- 
gulfed in  its  selfish  introspections.  The  terms  monk  and 
monastery  lost  their  once  grateful  sound ;  local  com- 
ments turned  from  praise  to  blame ;  esteem  and  affection 
gave  place  in  the  breasts  of  their  tenants  and  underlings  to 
contempt  and  hate.  The  hostels  of  the  lowly  Nazarene,  in 
which  the  poor  and  the  maimed  were  no  longer  welcome, 
housed  lordly  abbots  and  their  wasteful  retinues.  The 
effects  of  the  unseemly  change  were  seen  in  many  direc- 
tions, and  in  none  more  than  in  this,  that  whenever  local 
riots  arose  the  monastery  or  abbey  was  almost  sure  to  be 
the  first  building  upon  which  the  people  vented  their  dis- 
pleasure. When  Wycliffe  assailed  the  monks  and  friars  they 
were  no  longer  formidable.  The  seculars  had  begun  to  sup- 
plant them  in  the  cure  of  souls ;  the  Universities  had  found 
them  a  negligible  quantity ;  the  education  of  the  youth  of  the 
nation  had  passed  out  of  their  keeping ;  the  people  resented 
their  aloofness ;  the  barons  hungered  for  their  broad  acres, 
and  patriots  viewed  them  as  the  watchdogs  of  an  alien 
power. 

At  this  juncture,  when  the  noble  impulses  of  Benedictines, 
Augustinians,  Franciscans,  and  Dominicans  were  trembling 
on  the  verge  of  extinction,  the  ravages  of  the  Black  Death 
destroyed  at  a  blow  one  half  the  inmates  of  the  religious  houses 
in  England.  Then,  as  we  have  seen,  the  friars  rendered  a 
laudable  service  to  stricken  humanity.  But  the  fearful  visita- 
tion crushed  the  monastic  establishments.  Their  broken 
and  dispirited  survivors  could  not  fill  the  vacancies  thus 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  95 

created,  and  their  funds  went  unreplenished  by  any  entrance 
fees.  In  England  during  the  fourteenth  century  only  sixty- 
four  new  monasteries  were  established,  as  compared  with  two 
hundred  and  ninety-six  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  four 
hundred  and  ninety  in  the  twelfth  century.^  Conciliation 
by  means  of  a  more  public-minded  policy  and  service  was  at 
an  end.  The  state  of  affairs  before  Wy cliff e  came  upon  the 
scene  has  been  depicted  by  Dr.  Jessopp :  the  monk  "fled 
away  to  his  solitude ;  the  rapture  of  silent  adoration  was  his 
joy  and  exceeding  great  reward ;  his  nights  and  days  might 
be  spent  in  praise  and  prayer,  sometimes  in  study  and  re- 
search, sometimes  in  battling  with  the  powers  of  darkness 
and  ignorance,  sometimes  in  throwing  himself  heart  and 
soul  into  art  which  it  was  easy  to  persuade  himself  he  was 
doing  only  for  the  glory  of  God ;  but  all  this  must  go  on  far 
away  from  the  busy  haunts  of  men,  certainly  not  within 
earshot  of  the  multitude."  ^ 

Monasticism  had  received  repeated  warnings  to  set  its 
house  in  order ;  nor  did  the  injustice  of  some  of  its  enemies 
excuse  its  own  perversity  and  pride.  It  evaded  embarrassing 
situations  and  suppressed  realities  until  doom  fell  upon  the 
proudest  and  richest  order  of  its  chivalry,  the  Knights  Tem- 
plars of  France,  and  none  could  foretell  where  the  next  stroke 
would  fall.  In  May,  1308,  fifty  knights  were  hurried  to  the 
stake ;  five  years  later  Pope  Clement  V  decreed  the  dispersal 
of  the  order,  and  the  tragedy  was  completed,  on  March 
14,  1314,  by  the  burning  of  Jacques  de  Molay,  the  Grand 
Master,  with  three  of  his  principal  subordinates.  A  small 
island  in  the  Seine,  at  the  western  end  of  the  city  of  Paris, 
where  now  the  Pont  Neuf  rests  between  the  arms  of  the  river, 
was  the  scene  of  the  execution.  The  flames  rose  against  the 
dusk  of  evening  and  crimsoned  the  shores,  which  were  lined 
with  spectators.     While  the  Grand  Master  stood  in  the  fire 

1  In  the  fifteenth  century  only  one  or  two  monasteries  were  built  in  England, 
the  chief  of  which  was  the  Bridgettine  Syon,  at  Isleworth,  Middlesex, 
founded  by  Henry  V  in  memory  of  his  father. 

'  "The  Coming  of  the  Friars"  ;   p.  7. 


96   THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

and  slowly  roasted  to  death  he  summoned  the  Pope  and  the 
French  king  to  appear  with  him  at  the  bar  of  the  Almighty. 
Within  forty  days  Clement  obeyed  the  call,  and  Philip  the 
Fair  within  the  year.^ 

A  century  and  more  before  these  events,  monasticism's 
loftiest  ideal  had  found  its  most  perfect  realization  in  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  the  young  Italian  who  for  a  moment  molded 
the  world  to  his  own  will,  and  better  still,  kept  himself 
unspotted  from  it.  The  life  of  St.  Francis  is  an  imperishable 
example  of  the  divinest  elements  victorious  in  human  nature, 
surviving  every  vicissitude  and  bringing  the  race  nearer  to 
the  goal  of  righteousness  and  obedience.  The  son  of  a  mer- 
chant of  Assisi,  Pietro  Bernardone,  he  is  said  to  have  received 
the  name  Franciscus  because  he  was  born  during  his  father's 
absence  in  France  in  1182,  although  some  biographers  have 
attributed  it  to  his  own  residence  there  as  a  youth,  and  to  his 
familiarity  with  the  language  of  the  Troubadours.  In  1206 
he  was  brought  to  the  verge  of  death  by  successive  attacks  of 
sickness,  which  decided  his  career.  Out  of  their  regen- 
erating purification  emerged  the  transcendently  beatific 
figure  of  the  saint,  who  turned  from  his  boon  companions 
and  their  pleasures  that  he  might  taste  the  powers  of  the 
world  to  come.  Relinquishing  his  inheritance,  he  took  upon 
himself  the  vows  of  poverty,  and  appeared  clad  in  a  single 
tunic  of  coarse  woolen  cloth,  girt  with  a  hempen  cord,  the 
dress  which  afterwards  became  the  garb  of  his  famous  order. 
The  greatest  of  the  Popes,  Innocent  III,  gave  him  the 
sanction  for  which  Francis  had  petitioned  that  discerner  of 
spirits,  and  the  young  devotee  settled  the  constitution  of  his 
fraternity  upon  the  threefold  basis  of  chastity,  poverty,  and 
obedience.  From  the  beginning  the  second  of  these  vows  was 
first  in  spiritual  importance  and  efficacy.  The  chosen  motto 
of  the  brotherhood  was  Christ's  word,  "Ye  cannot  serve  God 
and  Mammon";  its  practice,  that  each  member  should 
esteem  himself  the  least  and  most  unprofitable  of  all.     "He 

>  M.  S.  C.  Smith :   "Twenty  Centuries  of  Paris"  ;   pp.  115,  118. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  97 

that  will  be  chief  among  you,"  said  the  founder,  "let  him  be 
your  servant."  Those  whose  self-consequence  would  not 
allow  them  to  submit  to  these  precepts  were  rejected,  and 
the  remnant  became  fratres,  freres,  or  friars,  who  were 
sent  out  to  proclaim  their  evangel  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth. 

The  companion  order  of  the  Dominicans  was  established 
in  1216,  the  yearof  Innocent's  death  and  of  his  formal  authori- 
zation of  the  Franciscans.  St.  Dominic,  their  founder,  was 
a  native  of  Calahorra  in  Old  Castile,  born  in  or  about  1170, 
the  year  of  Becket's  murder.  When  still  a  young  man  of 
twenty-three  he  was  so  well  known  for  piety  and  learning 
that  the  Bishop  of  Osma  appointed  him  to  a  canonry,  and 
relied  upon  his  help  in  the  reform  of  the  Chapter  according  to 
the  Augustinian  rule.  His  missionary  labors  among  the 
Moslems,  and  especially  among  the  Albigenses  of  southern 
France,  convinced  Dominic  that  the  cruelties  to  which  these 
sufferers  for  their  faith  were  subjected  could  not  convert  or 
even  shake  the  resolution  of  the  victims.  "We  must  meet 
them  with  other  weapons  and  greater  faith!"  he  cried. 
And  in  the  belief  that  such  heresies  lured  the  souls  of 
men  to  everlasting  ruin,  he  conceived  the  order  which 
bears  his  name.  On  December  22,  1216,  he  obtained  an 
audience  with  Innocent's  successor,  Honorius  III,  who  reluc- 
tantly confirmed  his  predecessor's  stipulation  that  the  first 
Dominican  community,  then  located  at  the  Church  of  St. 
Romain  in  Toulouse,  should  be  called  a  house  of  Augustinian 
canons.  The  endowments  of  St.  Dominic  as  a  preacher 
naturally  led  him  to  insist  on  the  agency  of  the  pulpit  for  the 
silencing  of  opponents  and  the  instruction  of  the  ignorant.^ 
In  1220  the  Dominicans,  imitating  the  Franciscans,  adopted 
vows  of  poverty  so  rigid  that  not  even  as  a  corporation  could 
they  hold  houses  or  lands.  The  two  orders,  thus  nearly 
simultaneous  in  their  origin,  were  known  from  the  color  of 
their  robes  as  the  Grey  and  the  Black  friars,  and  their 
>  A.  Jessopp :   "The  Coming  of  the  Friars"  ;  p.  24. 

H 


98        THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

mission,  while  practically  the  same  in  its  object,  was  suffi- 
ciently varied  in  methods  to  suit  their  distinctive  gifts. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  indicate  that  monks  and  friars  were 
not  simply  different  in  degree,  but  also  in  kind.  The  monk 
clung  to  his  possessions,  the  friar  had  not  where  to  lay  his 
head  ;  the  monk  lived  apart  from,  the  friar  with,  the  people. 
The  self-abnegation  of  the  latter  set  him  free  to  spend  and 
be  spent  in  their  behalf.  While  he  raised  his  voice  against 
their  lusts  and  iniquities,  he  was  alive  to  their  distresses  and 
shared  their  hopes  and  fears.  The  story  of  the  first  appear- 
ance of  the  friars  in  England  during  the  year  1224  surpasses 
romance  in  its  fascinations.  The  land  was  just  recovering 
from  the  religious  destitution  consequent  upon  the  Papal 
interdict  against  King  John  when  they  entered  it,  delivering 
as  they  went  the  message  that  neither  birth,  nor  station,  nor 
riches,  nor  learning  counted  for  aught,  but  rather  goodness, 
meekness,  sympathy,  and  truth.  Men  could  live  above  the 
base  and  the  vile,  and  find  their  highest  selves  while  pursuing 
their  ordinary  vocations.  Such  words  fell  upon  hearts 
longing  for  the  truth,  and  the  consistent  conduct  of  the 
preachers,  seconded  by  their  brief  and  intense  sermons, 
gained  an  eager  response  from  all  classes.  The  striking 
resemblance  between  the  earlier  friars  and  the  itinerants  of 
eighteenth  century  Methodism  has  been  widely  observed. 
"St.  Francis,"  comments  Dr.  Jessopp,  "was  the  John  Wesley 
of  the  thirteenth  century  whom  the  Church  did  not  cast 
out."  Both  the  friars  and  the  circuit  riders  saw  that  the 
Church  was  lifeless,  that  the  parochial  system  had  collapsed, 
and  that  the  only  means  of  recovery  was  by  a  return  to  the 
spirit  and  letter  of  the  New  Testament  Evangel,  in  absolute, 
unquestioning  obedience  to  its  teachings.  This  they  essayed, 
without  disputing  on  useless  issues,  and  unhindered  by 
superfluous  dogmas  or  rules.  But  the  parallel  was  incom- 
plete in  one  salient  particular.  The  friars  were  conformable 
to  the  general  policy  of  the  Roman  Church,  and  when  John 
XXII  condemned  the  strict  observance  of  the  vows  of  their 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  99 

order  they  even  burnt  their  brethren  who  clung  to  the  tradi- 
tions of  St.  Francis.  The  Methodist  Churches,  whether  in 
England,  America,  or  elsewhere,  have  always  been  independ- 
ent of  any  ecclesiastical  authority  outside  their  own  borders. 
Papal  corruption  had  little  to  fear  from  the  friars  so  long 
as  the  Curia  exercised  control.  When  the  Spiritual  Francis- 
cans developed  their  own  principles  and  became  the  Fraticelli, 
they  drew  upon  themselves  the  censure  of  popes,  of  kings, 
and  of  those  who  represented  the  conservative  interests  of 
society.  The  lower  minds  among  them  surrendered  those 
ideals  which  had  awed  Europe  into  adoration,  and  sank 
down  into  an  organized  hypocrisy.  The  loftier  intellects, 
who  did  not  share  St.  Francis'  contempt  for  learning, 
were  harassed,  silenced,  banished,  or  imprisoned.  Fore- 
most among  such  men  was  Roger  Bacon,  whose  vast  knowl- 
edge and  investigations  in  physics  enabled  him  to  confront 
tradition  and  authority  with  facts  demonstrated  by  experi- 
ment. Time  worked  its  deterioration  on  the  friars'  single- 
ness of  aim ;  the  exacting  regimen  of  Assisi  was  honestly 
believed  by  many  of  the  saint's  followers  to  be  impossible  of 
fulfillment.  Spiritual  romanticism  was  followed  by  sudden 
and  violent  disenchantment.  The  millennial  vision  vanished 
after  its  collision  with  reality.  The  consequences  were 
such  as  might  have  been  expected ;  those  who  set  up  as 
idealists  while  at  the  same  time  living  on  the  naturalistic 
level  hastened  the  triumph  of  the  forces  against  which  they 
professed  resistance.  "Whether  there  be  prophecies,"  said 
the  Apostle,  "they  shall  fail;"  and  those  pseudo-prophets 
who  were  unable  to  breathe  the  rarefied  atmosphere  of  the 
altitudes  attained  by  seers  of  the  past  could  no  longer  utter 
oracles  with  any  meaning.  Yet  "Love  never  faileth,"  and, 
although  their  brotherhood  was  demoralized,  their  concord 
broken  by  disloyalties  and  divisions,  that  wonderful  example 
of  a  life  of  holiness  and  service  which  at  the  first  the  friars 
placed  before  the  world  has  been  a  source  of  strength  and 
inspiration  in  every  branch  of  the  Church. 


100      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

III 

An  expert  in  adopting  other  men's  ideas,  Wycliffe  incor- 
porated the  friars'  doctrine  of  voluntary  poverty  into  his  own 
teaching  and  copied  their  methods  of  evangehzation  when  he 
sent  out  his  poor  preachers.  The  more  devout  among  them 
were  always  cherished  by  him,  and  he  coveted  their  aid  in  his 
revival  of  their  neglected  practices.  Some  responded,  and 
many  students,  failing  to  notice  this,  have  been  puzzled  by 
the  presence  of  four  friars  as  his  advisers  when  he  appeared 
before  the  Convocation  at  St.  Paul's.  But,  once  he  was 
persuaded  that  the  orders  as  a  whole  were  lost  to  their 
proper  aspirations  and  no  longer  abstained  from  all  pursuits 
common  to  men  that  they  might  preach  the  Gospel  of  Jesus 
in  word  and  deed,  he  set  them  apart  for  contempt  and  scorn. 
They  were  outside  the  pale  of  decency,  reprobate  and  ab- 
normally wicked.  Nor  was  he  alone  in  these  accusations ; 
all  classes,  save  those  which  profited  by  the  friars'  lapse, 
were  a  unit  in  protesting  against  their  outrages,  hypocrisies, 
and  lusts.  Exempt  from  episcopal  jurisdiction,  they  were 
severely  censured  by  the  bishops  who  could  not  control 
their  excesses.  The  monastic  orders  eyed  them  askance  as 
successful  rivals,  and  fiercely  assailed  them.  But  the  general 
and  prolonged  outcry  against  them  and  the  nearly  universal 
hatred  heaped  upon  their  works  and  ways  can  only  be  ex- 
plained by  the  fact  that  the  offenses  laid  at  their  door  were 
substantially  true.  They  had  fallen  to  the  lowest  levels  of 
society,  and  the  height  of  their  first  endeavors  gave  momen- 
tum to  the  headlong  descent. 

They  glossed  the  Scriptures  to  extenuate  the  crimes  of  male- 
factors, and  heard  confessions  and  granted  absolutions  with 
such  flagrant  disregard  for  the  sanctity  of  the  priestly  voca- 
tion that  the  Pope  was  driven  to  contemplate  its  withdrawal. 
Freed  from  parochial  responsibilities,  they  wandered  where 
they  pleased,  refusing  with  impudent  nonchalance  to  face  the 
results  of  their  evil  deeds,  and  leaving  behind  them  an  in- 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  101 

creasing  army  of  villains  and  outlaws  shriven  for  a  fee  and 
cleansed  of  all  their  sins.  These  sorry  specimens  of  the 
pardoning  power  were  the  despair  of  the  secular  priests  and 
of  the  bailiffs  alike.  The  sober  testimony  of  such  dignitaries 
as  Archbishop  Fitzralph  supports  what  otherwise  might 
appear  to  be  rhetorical  exaggerations.  He  averred  that 
he  had  two  thousand  ^  such  in  a  year  "  who  are  excommuni- 
cated for  willful  robbery,  arson,  and  similar  acts,  of  whom 
scarce  forty  come  to  me  or  my  parish  priests  for  confession, 
preferring  to  confess  to  the  begging  friars  who  at  once 
absolve  and  admit  them  to  communion."  "  Any  accursed 
swearer,  extortioner,  or  adulterer,"  thundered  Wy cliff e, 
"will  not  be  shriven  by  his  own  curate,  but  will  go  to  a 
flattering  friar  that  will  assoil  him  falsely  for  a  little  money 
by  the  year,  though  he  be  not  in  a  will  to  make  restitution  and 
to  leave  his  accursed  sin."  He  branded  them  with  the  name 
of  Cain,  spelt  Caym,  and  taken  from  the  initials  of  the  Carmel- 
ites, Austins,  Jacobins  or  Dominicans,  and  Minorites  or 
Franciscans.  Their  farcical  pretensions  to  religious  over- 
sight were  satirized  in  the  political  ballads  of  the  street,  of 
which  the  following  stanza  is  a  specimen : 

"For  had  a  man  slain  all  his  kin, 
Go  shrive  him  to  a  friar, 
And  for  less  then  a  pair  of  shoon 
He  will  assoil  him  clean  and  soon." 

Chaucer's  optimism  gave  place  to  irony  when  he  depicted 
among  the  Canterbury  pilgrims  the  monk  "who  had 
but  one  fault,  forgetfulness  of  the  rules  of  his  order,  and  an 
inordinate  love  for  hunting."  The  smooth-tongued  friar; 
the  summoner,  with  his  "fire-red  pimpled  face,  narrow 
eyes  and  loose  morals;  the  pardoner  of  beardless  chin, 
goggle  eyes,  dark  yellow  hair  and  squeaking  voice,"  were  an 
unedifying  group  of  clerical  figures  in  the  poet's  narrative. 

'  The  number  varies :   some  authorities  giving  two  thousand,  others  two 
hundred. 


102      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

Many  had  degenerated  into  hucksters;  "Charity,"  wrote 
Langland,  "hath  turned  chapman."  Their  profits  were  too 
often  spent  in  dissipation.  The  friars  "knew  the  tavernes 
well  in  every  town."  Popular  songs  imputed  to  them  the 
worst  of  crimes. 

"All  wickedness  that  men  can  tell 
Reigneth  them  among, 
There  shall  no  soul  have  room  in  hell 
Of  friars  there  is  such  a  throng." 

Wycliffe  did  not  accuse  them  of  the  grossest  forms  of  im- 
morality, but  Langland,  widely  divergent  from  him  in  tem- 
perament and  outlook,  did,  and  issued  his  tirade  against  the 
mendicants,  pardoners,  summoners,  and  other  such  "cater- 
pillars of  the  commonwealth."  They  were  chiefly  intent  on 
humoring  the  lewd  and  the  godless  and  inducing  them  to  open 
their  pockets  after  their  harangues.  Nor  did  they  confine 
their  solicitations  to  the  poor.  Lady  Meed,  the  incarnation 
of  illicit  gain  in  "Piers  Plowman,"  had  scarcely  arrived  in 
London  when 

"Came  there  a  confessor  coped  as  a  friar 

****** 

Then  he  absolved  her  soon,  and  sithen  he  said, 
We  have  a  window  a-working  will  cost  us  full  high, 
Wouldst  thou  glaze  that  gable  and  grave  therein  thy  neme, 
Sure  shall  thy  soul  be  heaven  to  have." 

So  notorious  were  the  infamies  of  these  parasites  that  the 
authorities,  and  especially  those  of  the  Universities,  were  com- 
pelled to  rise  against  them.  But  the  friars  were  aware  of 
their  power  as  a  useful  organization  to  be  employed  in  emer- 
gencies by  unscrupulous  superiors.  They  also  had  a  firm 
hold  upon  the  ignorant  and  the  refractory,  whose  prejudices 
and  offenses  they  fostered  or  excused,  and  they  could  afford 
to  ignore  the  threatenings  of  the  higher  clergy.  This  defiant 
attitude  was  emphasized  by  the  alignment  of  the  orders 
in  opposite    political    camps.     The   Franciscans  naturally 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  103 

cast  their  weight  on  the  side  of  the  peasantry,  from  whose 
ranks  they  were  recruited ;  while  the  Dominicans  favored  the 
wealthier  groups.  Both  aUke  were  advocates  of  Papal 
claims,  emissaries  of  Rome,  and  defenders  of  the  highest 
sacerdotal  views  of  the  priesthood  and  of  the  Sacrament 
of  the  Mass.  They  shared  in  the  repression  of  intellectual 
freedom  at  Oxford,  and  hunted  down  Wycliffe's  preachers 
wherever  found. 

He  attributed  their  depravity  to  the  inflated  notions  of 
clerical  power  then  prevalent,  and  the  wanton  abuse  of  its 
prerogatives  convinced  him  that  it  must  be  destroyed  before 
any  permanent  reform  in  the  Church  could  be  accom- 
plished. As  with  many  intellectual  people,  Wycliffe's  in- 
exorable reasoning  was  more  consistent  than  his  insight 
was  sure.  He  did  not  perceive  that  the  real  cause  for 
the  breakdown  of  the  Franciscan  ideal  was  to  be  found 
in  the  inevitable  reaction  which  followed  Francis'  premature 
attempt  to  project  his  scheme  on  an  agitated  and  wicked 
age.  No  such  spiritual  conception  could  remain  alive  and 
prosper  unless  the  losses  to  its  disciples  from  death  and 
disaffection  were  repaired  by  compensatory  gains  the  ad- 
verse conditions  of  the  period  did  not  supply.  The  saint 
of  Assisi  was  set  on  the  immediate  regeneration  of  men 
and  society  after  the  pattern  of  his  own  transformation. 
The  less  obvious  and  more  patient  processes  which  enable 
the  mass  of  mankind  gradually  to  transcend  the  limita- 
tions of  evil  in  themselves  and  in  their  environment  were 
rejected  for  a  frontal  attack  upon  iniquity  and  selfish- 
ness, which,  while  it  was  magnificent,  was  not  war.  It 
may  be  remarked  in  passing  that  the  decline  of  the  orders 
coincided  with  a  desirable  change  in  the  fortunes  of  the 
parochial  priesthood.  The  seculars  were  no  longer  to  be 
ousted  from  their  charges,  nor  deprived  of  their  pastoral 
standing,  nor  robbed  of  their  income  in  order  that  some 
fraternity  might  reap  advantage,  or  an  already  wealthy 
abbey  be  increasingly  endowed.     The  founding  of  Merton, 


104      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

Queens,  and  New  Colleges  was  the  genesis  of  an  educational 
system  intended  to  supply,  among  other  requisites,  a  godly 
and  learned  ministry  for  the  churches  of  the  nation.  The 
necessity  for  this  waited  long  upon  its  fulfillment,  but  at  any 
rate  the  diversion  had  been  made,  and  while  the  regulars 
decreased  the  seculars  grew  in  efficiency  and  serviceableness. 
Moreover,  the  Black  Death  bettered  the  condition  of  the 
survivors  among  the  parochial  clergy  by  increasing  the  de- 
mand for  their  labors.  The  registers  show  that  during  and 
directly  after  the  pestilence,  the  number  of  priests  instituted 
to  livings  increased  from  thirty-seven  to  seventy-four  in  every 
hundred  cases.  Notwithstanding  episcopal  edicts,  their 
stipends  were  raised  commensurately,  and  in  this  and 
other  ways  the  disparity  between  them  and  the  rest  of  the 
clergy  was  reduced.  Thus  the  Black  Death  did  in  one  year 
what  the  Ecumenical  Council  of  Lyons  had  conspicuously 
failed  to  accomplish,  although  summoned  by  a  reforming 
Pontiff,  and  prompted  by  such  disciplinarians  as  St.  Bona- 
ventura  and  his  fellow  Franciscan,  Eudes  Rigaud  of  Rouen.^ 
From  the  moment  that  Wycliffe  resented  the  sacerdotalism 
which  the  friars  embodied  and  abused,  his  severance  from 
Rome  was  simply  a  question  of  time.  His  hesitancies  were 
dismissed  by  the  Great  Schism  which  six  years  before  his 
death  tore  asunder  the  Papacy,  and  continued  from  1378  to 
1417.  This  event  convulsed  Christendom  and  gravely 
affected  the  standing  of  the  Holy  See.  The  confusion 
and  distress  which  resulted  from  it  were  an  impressive 
tribute  to  the  historical  service  of  the  Papacy  as  a  cen- 
tralizing and  cohesive  power.  "For  nearly  eight  hundred 
years,"  says  Dr.  Workman,  in  an  eloquent  passage,  "Rome 
had  stood,  not  merely  for  righteousness,  but  solidarity.  Her 
bishops  were  not  only  the  vicars  of  God  ;  they  were  the  sym- 
bols and  source  of  a  brotherhood  that  would  otherwise  have 
perished.  Men  remembered  their  services  in  the  past ;  how 
they  had  tamed  the  barbarians,  enforced  law  upon  the  lawless, 

'  G.  C.  C.  Coulton :    "Chaucer  and  his  England";   p.  305. 


JOHN    WYCLIFFE  105 

preached  the  subordination  of  the  individual  to  society, 
curbed  the  lust  and  despotism  of  kings,  held  up  ideals  of 
purity  and  truth  in  the  darkest  ages,  saved  the  Church 
from  the  triumph  of  the  Cathari,^  maintained  a  unity  of 
faith  and  hope  in  the  days  when  all  creed  was  in  danger  of 
disintegration."  ^  Whether  or  not  everything  in  this  list  of 
notable  deeds  was  Rome's  actual  work,  or  an  appro- 
priation of  that  of  other  agents,  the  people  of  the  four- 
teenth century  neither  knew  nor  cared.  It  sufficed  for  the 
vast  majority  that  they  held  her  claims  valid,  and  her  Pon- 
tiffs a  divinely  ordained  succession.  Any  infringement  upon 
the  integrity  and  rights  of  the  throne  of  St.  Peter  was  there- 
fore a  desecration  of  the  controlling  authority  in  civiliza- 
tion. There  had  always  existed  in  the  Church  a  liberal  and 
legitimate  trend  of  thought  and  effort,  which  was  not  at 
variance  with  any  vital  principle  of  Catholicism,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  essential  to  its  functions  as  a  unifying  force. 
The  representatives  of  this  trend  knew  that  "if  in  a  higher 
world  it  is  otherwise,  yet  here  below  to  live  is  to  change,  and 
to  be  perfect  is  to  have  changed  often."  Yet  when  sagacious 
ecclesiastics,  recognizing  that  the  human  element  in  the 
Church  stood  ever  in  need  of  correction  and  readjustment, 
made  any  overtures  for  reform,  a  conflict  was  invariably 
precipitated,   in  which   the    conservatives,   with  the  Vati- 

1  The  Cathari,  also  known  as  Paiilicians,  Albigenses,  Bulgarians,  Mani- 
cheans,  etc.,  were  a  widely  scattered  sect  both  in  the  East  and  the  West. 
They  believed  in  the  existence  of  two  Gods,  one  good,  the  other  evil,  both 
eternal,  though  as  a  rule  they  subordinated  the  evil  to  the  good  ;  that  Satan 
inspired  certain  parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  was  the  ruler  of  this  world, 
which  was  spiritual,  not  material ;  that  all  men  would  finally  be  saved, 
but  that  those  dying  unreconciled  to  God  through  Christ  must  return  to 
earth  for  a  further  term  of  imprisonment  in  the  flesh,  either  in  a  human  or 
an  animal  body.  They  fell  into  two  well-marked  divisions:  the  Cate- 
chumens or  Believers,  and  the  Perfect,  who  had  received  the  gift  of  the 
Paraclete.  The  latter,  which  included  women,  formed  the  priesthood  and 
controlled  the  Church.  The  influence  of  the  Cathari  on  Christendom  was 
enormous.  To  counteract  it  Innocent  III  instituted  his  crusades,  and  celi- 
bacy was  finally  imposed  on  the  clergy ;  the  great  mendicant  orders  and 
the  sacrament  of  Extreme  Unction  were  also  evolved  by  way  of  competing 
with  the  teachings  and  practices  of  the  sect. 

2  "The  Dawn  of  the  Reformation"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  12. 


106      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

can  at  their  head,  generally  won  an  easy  victory.  Ger- 
son's  plea  for  a  constitutional  Papacy  deriving  its  authority 
from  conciliar  representation,  or  the  plan  advocated  by 
Grosseteste,  who  asked  that  methods  of  raising  revenue  should 
be  reformed  and  a  stricter  discipline  enforced,  received 
scarcely  less  rebuke  from  Rome  than  the  revolutionary  pro- 
posals made  by  Marsiglio  and  Wycliffe.  The  outward 
unity  of  Christendom  was  finally  shattered,  and  the  re- 
proach incurred  by  the  Holy  See  for  its  part  in  the  calamity 
was  the  more  deserved,  because  this  was  hastened  by  the 
resistance  of  the  Popes  to  human  progress  and  by  their 
ambition  for  temporal  sovereignty.  The  very  raison  d'etre 
of  the  Papacy  consisted  in  its  being  the  divinely  appointed 
trustee  of  the  legacy  of  faith  and  morals  bequeathed  to 
mankind  by  Christ.  The  fidelity  and  energy  with  which 
this  treasure  should  have  been  guarded  were  squandered  on 
earthly  affairs,  and  struggles  for  political  ascendency. 

Further,  in  demolishing  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  the  Pa- 
pacy irretrievably  damaged  its  own  edifice.  Conjoined,  the 
two  powers  were  supreme  because  they  were  complementary ; 
separated,  each  was  deprived  of  the  federation  of  secular 
and  ecclesiastical  authority  which  had  been  a  mutual  sup- 
port in  their  subjection  of  European  tribes  and  kindreds. 
Their  centripetal  forces  were  spent  in  what  was  really  a 
civil  war;  Gregory  IX  and  Innocent  IV  even  went  to 
the  length  of  proclaiming  their  conflict  with  the  Em- 
peror Frederic  II  a  crusade,  and,  on  that  assumption, 
demanded  funds  from  the  Church  and  the  faithful.  The 
struggle  ended  in  the  defeat  of  the  Emperor,  once  known  as 
the  "wonder  of  Europe,"  a  ruler  of  high  ideals  and  pursuits. 
He  died  in  the  summer  of  1250,  leaving  many  projects 
unfulfilled ;  on  the  subsequent  ruin  of  his  house,  the  Cape- 
tians  strengthened  their  dynasty  in  France  and  the  English 
monarchy  became  a  still  more  essential  part  of  that  nation. 
Rome  discovered,  too  late,  the  nemesis  of  her  triumph  over 
the  Empire  in  the  widespread  conviction,  which  she  could 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  107 

not  shake,  that  the  building  up  of  separate  nationalities 
was  the  future  task  of  statesmen  and  the  goal  of  history. 
Thus  a  deadly  blow  was  inflicted  upon  her  prestige  by  those 
results  which  she  had  imagined  would  increase  it. 

There  was  nothing  novel  in  the  idea  of  national  automony, 
though  it  had  long  been  dormant  when  the  dissolution  of  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire  and  the  passing  of  the  medieval  prin- 
ciple of  internationalism  reawakened  it  and  made  possible 
its  realization.  The  Popes  asserted  anew  their  claim  to 
authority,  only  to  find  that  the  moral  grounds  on  which  the 
Papacy  originally  rested  its  case  were  no  longer  tenable 
and  that  the  lower  methods  of  diplomacy  and  of  war 
were  their  only  resources.  Rulers  and  peoples  were  not 
disposed  to  readmit  spiritual  prerogatives  or  bow  to 
clerical  control  without  the  closest  scrutiny,  and,  at  times, 
open  defiance.  That  astute  and  unscrupulous  politician, 
Boniface  VIII,  endeavored  to  remove  this  antagonism,  but  he 
could  not  depend,  as  did  his  predecessors,  upon  the  Euro- 
pean princes  as  his  feudatories  and  the  instruments  of  his 
will.  Where  compulsion  was  unavailing,  negotiation  was 
the  last  resort;  by  its  employment  of  artifice  and  strategy 
the  Papacy  lowered  itself  to  the  level  of  surrounding  gov- 
ernments, and  incurred  reprisals  that  were  a  contradiction 
of  its  theories  of  overlordship.  To  make  confusion  worse 
confounded  Boniface  plunged  into  a  quarrel  with  Philip  the 
Fair  of  France  which  ended  in  the  defeat  and  capture  of  the 
Pontiff,  who  was  sent  to  Rome  as  a  hostage,  where  he  was 
imprisoned  by  the  Orsini  in  the  Vatican,  until,  on  October  the 
eleventh,  1303,  death  mercifully  released  him  from  further 
humiliation.  Such  a  tragedy  had  not  been  known  since  the 
fall  of  Rome ;  the  spiritual  sovereignty  of  Christendom  had 
become  a  mere  adjunct  in  the  administration  of  one  among  a 
group  of  developing  states.  The  successor  of  Boniface  like- 
wise perished  with  mysterious  suddenness,  and  the  choice 
of  the  next  Papal  candidate  was  dictated  by  Philip,  who 
forced  the  new  Pope  to  give  pledges  that  he  would  revise  the 


108      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

Vatican's  policy  in  harmony  with  the  king's  wishes.  This 
infamous  betrayer  of  his  Pontificate,  Clement  V,  was  born  a 
subject  of  Edward  I  in  or  about  the  year  1264.  He  became 
Archbishop  of  Bordeaux,  and  was  crowned  Pope  at  Lyons 
on  November  14,  1305. 

After  his  elevation  to  the  throne  of  Peter,  Clement  peremp- 
torily refused  to  reside  in  Rome,  nor  did  he  visit  the  capital 
of  Christendom  during  his  sovereignty.  In  1309,  consist- 
ently with  the  deliberate  exploitation  of  the  Holy  See  by  the 
French  Court,  he  transferred  its  seat  to  Avignon.  The  act 
was  worse  than  a  blunder,  it  was  a  crime.  The  Pope  and 
Rome  were  inseparably  one,  a  necessary  unity  for  the  religious 
symbolism  which  was  cosmopolitan,  not  national,  and  still  less 
sectional ;  intelligible  to  all,  understood  by  all.  Their  un- 
natural separation  startled  and  repelled  Catholics  of  every 
land ;  it  chilled  the  heart  and  numbed  the  intelligence  of 
those  who  ardently  cherished  divine  things. 

Avignon  is  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  world  by  the 
legends  and  histories  that  haunt  its  embattled  walls  and 
thirty-nine  towers.  Innocent  IV  built  these  fortifications, 
whose  strength  stayed  for  a  time  the  prowess  of  Bertrand 
du  Guesclin,  the  foremost  warrior  of  fourteenth  century 
France.  In  Avignon,  Petrarch  is  said  to  have  looked 
on  Laura  for  the  first  time,  and  the  city  still  claims  her 
tomb.  Along  its  streets  rode  the  beautiful  Queen  Jeanne 
of  Naples,  attended  by  her  courtiers,  when  she  came  to 
answer  for  the  murder  of  her  husband,  and  to  sell  the 
place  to  Clement  VI  for  eighty  thousand  gold  florins. 
Rienzi  also  found  his  way  here,  shadowed  by  his  approaching 
fate.  The  Palace  of  the  Popes,  a  sanctuary  and  a  fortress, 
is  enthroned  on  the  Roches  des  Domes,  three  hundred  feet 
above  the  Rhone,  and  in  its  hall  of  audience  the  politics  of 
Europe  centered  for  a  century  and  a  half.  The  Court  of 
Avignon  during  this  period  was  a  plague-spot  of  wholesale 
bribery,  simony,  and  debauchery.  Petrarch,  whose  language 
should  be  received  with  some  reservation,  described  the  gloomy 


JOHN    WYCLIFFE  109 

stronghold  as  "  the  city  of  the  Captivity,  the  common 
sink  of  all  vices,  false  guilt-laden  Babylon,  the  forge  of  lies, 
the  horrible  prison,  the  hell  upon  earth."  Beyond  ques- 
tion its  villainies  saddened  the  souls  of  believers  and  stim- 
ulated the  antagonism  in  which  Wycliffe  figured.  The 
morale  of  the  Church  was  impaired  by  the  sight  of  the 
Pontiff  acting  as  the  ally  of  France,  and  subjected  by  French 
statesmen  to  their  schemes  for  dominating  the  continent. 
The  tribunal  which  had  been  the  court  of  arbitration  for 
Western  Christianity,  and  whose  judgments,  as  the  one  un- 
trammeled  and  absolute  authority  above  the  control  or 
influence  of  secular  states,  had  been  dispensed  with  so  even 
a  hand  as  to  command  general  approval,  now  became  a 
hissing  and   a   byword. 

In  England  dissatisfaction  slowly  passed  into  open  hos- 
tility. The  reasons  were  evident :  not  only  was  any  measure 
which  ran  counter  to  French  interests  promptly  suppressed, 
but  these  interests  were  aided  and  abetted  by  Papal  decrees. 
Clement  V  and  his  brother  supplied  the  French  army  with 
several  millions  of  pounds  sterling  during  the  wars  of 
France  with  the  island  kingdom,  which  itself  had  previously 
contributed  to  the  Papal  exchequer  a  large  part  of  the 
grant.  The  treacherous  deed  filled  England's  cup  of  bitter- 
ness to  overflowing;  it  was  typical  of  the  conscienceless 
extortions  wrung  under  every  conceivable  pretext  from 
all  regions  within  the  Papal  jurisdiction.  The  end  of  such 
a  course  could  be  nothing  short  of  the  degradation  of  the 
Papacy,  the  ruin  of  its  standing  and  authority.  And 
so  the  event  proved.  "The  Church  is  pale,"  lamented 
Catherine  of  Sienna,  "  through  loss  of  blood  drained  from  her 
by  insatiable  devourers." 

The  suicidal  proceeding  entered  its  last  phase  in  the 
Schism,  when  two  rival  Popes  reviled  and  excommunicated 
each  other  with  every  insult  and  calumny  unheeding 
anger  could  evoke.  They  w^ere  compared  by  Wycliffe  to 
hungry  dogs  snarling  over  one   bone.      After  more  than 


110      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

seventy  years  of  the  Avignon  Papacy,  Gregory  XI  returned 
to  Rome  in  the  winter  of  1376-1377,  reluctantly  taking  this 
step  after  repeated  solicitations  from  St.  Catherine,  whose 
remarkable  letters  to  the  Pontiff  on  various  occasions  were 
replete  with  literary  charm  and  spiritual  fervor.  He  found 
the  city  a  desolation  and  the  Lateran  Palace  uninhabitable ; 
an  ominous  emblem  of  the  irreparable  havoc  which  had  been 
wrought  upon  the  Holy  See  itself. 

This  brief  summary  of  the  causes  and  consequences  of  the 
collapse  of  Romanism,  as  conceived  by  Hildebrand  and  real- 
ized in  part  by  Innocent  III,  leaves  one  occupied  with  con- 
jectures upon  what  might  have  been  the  future  of  Christen- 
dom if  the  warnings  of  Dante,  the  foremost  religious  genius  of 
the  last  millennium,  had  been  effectual.  His  "  Divina  Com- 
media"  is  the  grandest  medieval  memorial  of  a  completely 
enfranchised  soul,  and  the  chief  token  of  its  power.  Indi- 
vidual as  his  work  is,  it  sets  forth  a  universal  system,  in  which 
he  passes  beyond  the  farthest  boundaries  of  man's  mind. 
The  great  poet  sorrowed  over  the  destruction  of  the  Empire 
and  the  lost  unity  of  the  Church  which  had  been  the  nexus  of 
the  nations.  He  foresaw  that  without  some  auspicious  inter- 
vention further  calamities  would  ensue.  The  conclusions  of 
saints  of  happier  times,  such  as  St.  Bernard,  St.  Victor,  and 
St.  Thomas,  haunted  his  remembrance.  He  heard  the  fail- 
ings of  the  Church  on  earth  recounted  in  the  courts  above ; 
the  splendors  of  Paradise  grew  dim  while  St.  Peter  denounced 
the  sins  of  those  who  had  disgraced  the  Holy  See.  But 
notwithstanding  Dante's  cyclonic  bursts  of  wrath  against 
her  iniquities,  Rome  remained  for  him  the  center  of  the 
world  and  the  hope  of  the  race.  The  idea  of  a  supreme 
divine  development  in  which  human  institutions,  however 
holy,  were  but  the  foam  on  the  wave,  did  not  relieve  his 
distress.  He  knew  only  the  things  of  the  past ;  salvation 
from  the  disasters  he  mourned  lay,  not  in  the  womb  of  the 
future,  but  in  the  restoration  of  a  departed  authority  whose 
grandeur  comported  with  the  notions  of  his  own  mind. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  111 

Believing  this  he  turned  to  the  reconstituted  Church  and 
Empire  as  the  only  source  and  anchorage  of  humanity. 

The  results  he  presaged  came  in  full  measure,  pressed 
down  and  running  over.  The  Papacy,  which  had  cowed 
Abailard,  silenced  the  speculations  of  Arnold  of  Brescia,  and 
at  every  hazard  held  fast  to  the  orthodox  faith,  itself  fell  a 
victim  to  the  heresies  of  the  Renaissance.  Emerging  from 
the  French  Captivity  crippled  and  shorn,  it  became  degraded 
even  in  its  own  eyes,  and  the  refined  sensualism  of  the 
later  Pontiffs  was  only  purged  away  by  the  defection  of 
the  half  of  Christendom.  The  wounds  then  inflicted  have 
not  been  healed ;  the  unity  and  the  universality  lost  under 
Boniface  VIII  and  Clement  V  have  not  been  recovered,  nor 
has  the  Holy  See  since  resumed  its  overlordship  of  the  Euro- 
pean nations.  Nevertheless,  though  sorely  pressed  on  many 
sides,  and  sadly  mutilated,  it  regained  the  old  severe  and 
rigid  method,  and  continued  to  serve  as  a  great  reservoir 
of  influences  and  powers  which  have  steadily  contributed  to 
the  organization  of  modern  society. 

The  splendid  dream  of  Hildebrand,  like  that  of  St.  Francis, 
was  foredoomed  for  lack  of  elasticity.  When  realized,  it 
was  defeated  by  the  expanding  life  of  Christian  States  which 
the  Church  knew  better  how  to  evolve  than  to  control. 
Beneath  the  moral  turpitude,  the  exodus  to  Avignon, 
the  treacheries,  grievances,  complaints,  and  wars,  lay  the 
Papacy's  fundamental  error:  its  slowness  to  perceive  that 
feudalism  in  the  fourteenth  century  had  begun  to  die  and 
was  no  longer  possible  as  an  organic  system.  The  higher 
civilization  which  supplanted  it  could  not  be  permanently  re- 
strained by  the  lower.  While  the  northern  peoples  increased 
in  vitality  and  ethical  superiority,  the  Holy  See  lost  its 
breadth  of  sympathy  and  was  unconsciously  narrowed  by 
Latin  traits  and  tendencies.  It  vainly  trusted  in  the  glamour 
of  outward  rank  and  circumstance ;  in  the  unyielding  moni- 
tions of  a  hierarchy,  and  in  the  stilted  formulae  with  which  it 
expressed  the  major  truths  of  life  and  faith.    These  had  little 


112      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

meaning  for  the  more  powerful  communities  which  eventually 
gained  supremacy  in  Germany,  Holland,  Scandinavia,  Great 
Britain  and  her  colonies  of  the  New  World.  Rome's  tra- 
ditional arguments,  which  her  wisest  children  would  have 
modified,  were  not  sufficiently  strong  to  support  a  position 
rendered  patently  anomalous  by  the  growth  of  knowledge 
and  freedom.  The  outcome  was  far  too  complex  and  exten- 
sive for  its  various  aspects  to  be  characterized  in  a  phrase. 
The  mischievous  result  for  the  Holy  See  was  the  loss  of  its 
genuine  catholicity.  On  the  European  continent  the  anarchy 
and  war  which  followed  offset  the  otherwise  notable  advan- 
tages of  release  from  Roman  supremacy. 

IV 

While  Sudbury,  Courtenay,  and  their  fellow  bishops  were 
anxiously  pondering  how  to  obey  the  Pope  without  offending 
the  English  people,  Wy cliff e  escaped  scot  free.  His  first 
appearance  in  public  affairs  after  the  proceedings  connected 
with  the  Papal  bulls  of  condemnation  was  in  the  autumn 
Parliament  of  1378.  John  of  Gaunt  had  violated  the  sanc- 
tuary at  Westminster  by  sending  a  band  of  armed  men  to 
seize  two  knights  who  had  taken  refuge  there,  one  of  whom 
was  slain  in  the  melee  which  ensued.  Wy  cliff  e  was  requested 
to  write  a  defense  of  the  Duke's  high-handed  action ;  he  re- 
sponded with  a  state  paper  which  is  still  preserved  and 
incorporated  in  his  treatise  "De  Ecclesia. "  As  an  argu- 
ment against  the  abuse  of  such  privileges  the  document 
is  creditable  enough,  but  it  was  not  applicable  to  the  case  in 
question.  The  result  was  that  it  gave  color  to  the  accusation 
that  Wycliffe  was  a  hireling  of  the  Lancastrian  party,  and 
neither  helped  Gaunt  nor  increased  its  author's  reputation. 
Wycliffe  occupied  a  far  stronger  position  when  he  resumed 
with  unabated  vigor  his  philippic  against  the  Csesarean  clergy. 
His  ecclesiastical  protestantism  voiced  a  common  feeling  of 
discontent.     Its  political  elements  contained  the  germinal 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  113 

conceptions  of  modern  as  substituted  for  medieval  ideas  of 
man  and  society,  and  in  giving  them  utterance  WyclifFe 
confirmed  his  position  as  a  leader  of  the  nation.  The 
luxurious  residences  and  appointments  of  the  wealthier  prel- 
ates savored  of  the  devil ;  their  flourishing  estates  were  a 
scandal  to  the  service  of  Him  who  had  said,  "My  kingdom  is 
not  of  this  world";  the  exactions  and  sinecures  of  the  hier- 
archies and  the  orders  were  derogatory  to  the  honor  of  God. 
Here  he  halted  before  assailing  the  Papacy,  restrained  by  the 
reflection  that  it  was  the  animating  principle  of  the  Church 
and  the  focus  of  her  external  forms.  Yet  the  rift  between 
him  and  the  Holy  See  was  made  in  the  first  instance  by 
logical  deductions  from  his  own  theories  on  lordship  and  its 
counterpart  in  service,  which  bore  heavily  upon  the  Papal 
claims.  Then  came  the  Schism,  which  demanded  force 
instead  of  logic,  and  certainly  could  not  be  met  by  Wycliffe's 
fixed  faith  in  the  virtues  of  argumentative  persuasion. 

In  this  change  of  sentiment  toward  the  Pontiffs  the 
antithesis  of  Church  and  State  was  implicated,  and  to  such 
opposition  as  his  the  genesis  of  the  Reformation  must  be 
ascribed.  Yet  he  earnestly  desired  the  preservation  of  the 
Holy  See,  believing  that  its  dignity  and  prestige  were  as 
essential  to  the  stability  of  Christendom  as  its  entangle- 
ment with  matters  temporal  was  subversive  of  that  end. 
He  contended  that  the  spheres  of  temporal  and  spiritual 
sovereignty  were  necessarily  separate  and  distinct,  that  the 
Church  should  neither  influence  politically  nor  be  influenced 
by  the  secular  power. 

Impelled  by  these  and  similar  arguments  he  slowly  drifted 
from  his  loyalty  to  the  Papacy.  Prior  to  1378  he  had 
acknowledged  its  governance,  although  denying  its  uncon- 
ditional plenary  power.  As  late  as  that  same  year  he  hailed 
the  election  of  Urban  VI  with  a  burst  of  approbation : 
"  Praised  be  the  Lord  who  has  given  to  our  Church  in  the  days 
of  her  pilgrimage  a  Catholic  head,  an  evangelical  man,  who, 
in  reforming  the  Church  that  it  may  live  in  accordance  with 


114      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

the  laws  of  Christ,  begins  in  due  order  with  himself  and  his 
own  household,  so  from  his  works  we  believe  that  he  is  our 
own  Christian  head."  Even  after  the  Schism,  Urban  was 
still,  in  Wycliffe's  words,  "our  Pope."  But  the  death  of 
Gregory  XI  at  Rome  changed  all  this.  His  successor  had  to 
be  elected  there,  and  the  violence  of  the  populace  so  alarmed 
the  Conclave  that  to  appease  it  they  chose  Urban,  an  Italian 
by  birth.  Five  months  later  he  outwitted  the  French  repre- 
sentation in  the  College  and  entrenched  himself  in  power  by 
nominating  twenty-eight  new  Cardinals,  a  majority  sufficient 
to  end  the  Galilean  control  of  the  Curia.  At  this  turn  of 
events  the  malcontents  elected  their  anti-pope,  Robert  of 
Geneva,  who  assumed  the  title  of  Clement  VII,  and  was  ulti- 
mately deposed  by  the  Council  of  Constance.  Thus  the 
Curia  itself  destroyed  the  unity  of  the  Church  and  created 
that  incipient  revolt  which  ended  in  the  upheaval  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  The  conduct  of  Urban  and  Clement  in 
their  violent  outbursts  against  each  other  soon  quenched 
Wycliffe's  praise  of  the  former  claimant.  Both  became  for 
him  as  "crows  resting  on  carrion,"  and  he  advised  that  they 
should  be  discarded,  since  they  had  "little  in  common  with 
the  Church  of  the  Holy  God."  The  description  was  justified ; 
Urban,  a  man  of  meager  cultivation  and  harsh  manners, 
behaved  with  the  ferocity  of  a  savage,  and  Clement,  although 
less  cruel  by  nature,  was  conspicuously  deficient  in  moral 
character.  Selfish  oligarchies  had  met  their  usual  fate,  and, 
while  Christian  people  looked  on,  helpless  and  depressed, 
both  Popes  pursued  a  tumultuous  course  of  personal  ven- 
geance, wherein  tortures,  imprisonments,  assassinations,  and 
wars  occurred  which  the  Cardinals  themselves  endeavored 
to  arrest. 

Neutrality  was  impossible,  and  Wycliffe's  detestation 
extended  beyond  the  rival  disputants  to  the  system  which 
they  were  tearing  to  pieces.  He  publicly  denounced  the 
Papacy  as  accursed  in  root  and  branch,  employing  epithets 
which  echoed  the  fury  that  raged  at  Rome   and   Avignon, 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  115 

"Christ,"  said  he,  "has  begun  to  help  us  graciously  in  that 
he  has  cloven  the  head  of  Antichrist  and  made  the  one  part 
fight  against  the  other."  The  primacy  of  St.  Peter  could 
not  be  proved ;  the  claims  based  upon  it  were  mythical ; 
Papal  infallibility  and  the  right  to  canonize  or  excommunicate 
were  wicked  delusions.  He  placed  upon  the  Curia  the  onus  of 
blame  for  the  oppression,  immorality,  strife,  and  misgovern- 
ment  that  disgraced  the  Papal  court  and  administration, 
and  referred  to  the  Pope  himself  as  an  apostate  to  venerate 
whom  was  blasphemous  idolatry.  While  he  traced  the  source 
of  these  grievous  misdoings  to  the  Pontiffs,  he  asserted  that 
their  poison  had  spread  throughout  the  ecclesiasticism  they 
personified.  The  "twelve  daughters  of  the  diabolical  leech" 
were  found  in  the  hierarchical  grades  of  the  clergy,  beginning 
with  the  Cardinals,  and  ending  with  the  doorkeepers  who  did 
their  bidding.  None  had  scriptural  warranty,  and  least  of 
all  those  of  the  higher  ranks,  who  should  be  plucked  out  of 
the  seats  they  defiled.  The  pastoral  offices  were  safer  in 
the  keeping  of  simple  and  godly  clerks  than  in  that  of  learned 
ingrates,  and,  unless  such  virtuous  men  were  installed  and 
the  Church  purged  of  crafty  and  ambitious  worldlings  who 
had  so  long  been  her  woe,  she  could  not  be  restored  to  her 
ancient  purity  and  service.  It  is  difficult  to  determine 
how  much  of  this  objurgation  originated  with  Wycliffe,  as 
distinguished  from  that  attributed  to  him.  Current  con- 
troversial literature  abounded  with  references  to  Antichrist, 
a  mysterious,  awful  being  who  was  regarded  as  the  sum  of 
diabolical  iniquity,  whose  name  was  employed  by  all  and 
sundry  to  heighten  their  vilification  of  opponents.  Many 
of  the  pamphlets  then  issued  have  been  confused  with 
the  writings  of  Wycliffe,  and,  later,  of  Hus.  It  is  fairly 
certain  that  Wycliffe  did  hot  object  to  the  Holy  See  so  long 
as  it  was  invested  with  its  essential  qualifications.  Nor  can 
his  adverse  attitude  be  ascribed  to  the  removal  of  the 
Papal  Court  to  Avignon,  an  event  which  took  place  before 
he  was  born.     His  abhorrence  arose  from  the  disgrace  of 


116      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

rival  successors  of  St.  Peter  frantically  issuing  excommuni- 
cations and  raising  armies  against  each  other.  This  prodi- 
gious evil  infected  the  entire  Church,  and,  so  far  as  Wycliffe 
was  involved,  after  1378,  the  memorable  year  in  his 
career,  he  had  no  dealings  with  Rome,  except  as  an  open 
adversary. 

His  doctrine  of  the  Church,  when  freed  from  the  scholastic 
abstractions  which  mystified  it,  may  be  divided  into  three 
parts :  the  Church  triumphant,  the  Church  militant,  and 
the  Church  "asleep  in  Purgatory."  The  second  of  these, 
which  alone  concerns  us,  he  defined  as  consisting  exclusively 
of  those  who  were  predestined  to  salvation.  This  assign- 
ment was  so  arbitrary  that  the  Pope  "wots  not  whether  he 
be  of  the  Church  or  whether  he  be  a  limb  of  the  fiend." 
The  number  of  the  elect  was  entirely  an  allocation  of  the 
Divine  Will,  and  their  indissoluble  spiritual  union  did  not 
require  the  countenance  of  hierarchies,  nor  that  of  the  "sects" 
of  monks,  friars,  and  priests.  He  showed  here,  as  elsewhere, 
the  deep  distrust  of  human  arrangements  which  he  seems  to 
have  inherited  from  Ockham,  carrying  it  to  the  extent  of 
complete  disorganization.  Not  only  might  Pope  and  Cardi- 
nals be  set  aside,  but  he  further  asserted  that  he  could  im- 
agine a  state  of  society  in  which  the  Church  should  consist 
solely  of  the  laity.  The  law  of  the  Gospel,  as  her  sufficient 
and  absolute  rule,  rendered  her  independent  of  such  adventi- 
tious aids  as  masses,  indulgences,  penances,  or  any  other  in- 
ventions of  spurious  sacerdotalism.  He  found  it  impossible 
to  defend  his  statements  by  Christian  tradition  or  by  the 
canon  law,  and  his  unhistorical  procedure  was  really  retro- 
grade. But,  though  he  did  not  see  the  direction  in  which 
the  Church  should  be  guided,  he  did  see  that  the  hierarchical 
system  which  had  hitherto  commanded  his  assent  had  ended 
in  disgrace  and  failure.  And  he  expressed  the  national 
instinct  in  his  approach  towards  that  evangelicalism  which 
has  since  largely  incorporated  the  religious  life  of  English- 
men and  Americans.     He  further  contended  that  the  reign- 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  117 

ing  monarch  should  be  the  head  of  Christ's  commonwealth, 
popes  and  bishops  being  subjected  to  him.  This  frankly 
Erastian  doctrine  could  scarcely  have  withstood  the  reasons 
adduced  against  it  from  the  encounter  of  Louis  the  Fair  of 
France  with  Boniface  VIII  and  Clement  V,  wherein  French 
treachery  was  more  to  be  dreaded  than  German  truculence. 
What  might  have  been  its  consequences  during  Edward  the 
Third's  later  period,  when  he  was  in  his  dotage  and  John  of 
Gaunt  and  Alice  Ferrers  distributed  the  patronage  of  the 
Crown,  or  again,  during  the  troubled  years  of  Richard  II, 
may  be  surmised  from  the  robberies  and  confiscations  which 
were  afterwards  perpetrated  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII. 

The  way  is  now  clear  to  discuss  Wycliffe's  teachings  upon 
Transubstantiation,  in  which  he  advanced  from  his  opposi- 
tion against  the  Papal  power  to  that  indictment  of  all  sacer- 
dotalism and  of  its  visible  evidence  in  the  Mass  which  exposed 
him  to  the  definite  accusation  of  heresy  and  completely 
separated  him  from  Catholicism.  In  the  summer  of  1381  he 
first  publicly  denied  that  the  elements  of  the  altar  suffered 
any  material  change  by  virtue  of  the  words  of  consecration, 
an  avowal  which  filled  his  closing  years  with  agitation  and 
eventually  cost  him  the  support  of  the  monarchy,  the  Lan- 
castrian party,  and  the  University.  Here  follows  a  survey  of 
the  chief  landmarks  in  the  history  of  the  dogma  he  withstood 
at  such  risk.  The  term  Transubstantiation  originally  occurs 
in  a  treatise  of  the  eleventh  century,  by  Hildebert  de  Savar- 
din  of  Tours,  or  Le  Mans,  although  the  ideas  which  the  term 
conveys  were  familiar  at  a  much  earlier  date,  and  arose  out 
of  the  disputation  concerning  the  Eucharist  that  extended 
from  the  ninth  to  the  eleventh  century.  During  this  era 
theologians  endeavored  to  place  the  holy  mystery  of  the 
Christian  faith  upon  a  philosophical  basis.  In  844  the  learned 
monk  Radbertus  Paschasius  published  a  monograph  on  the 
"Sacrament  of  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ,"  which  defined 
the  dogma  more  clearly  and  was  instrumental  in  its  develop- 
ment.    As  Radbertus  interpreted  it,  the  bread  and  wine 


118      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

became  internally  changed  into  the  veritable  flesh  and  blood 
of  the  Lord's  actual  Body.  Against  this  the  Benedictine 
monk  Ratramnus  contended  that  the  consecrated  wafer  was 
simply  a  memorial  or  mystery  of  the  spiritual  body  existing 
under  the  vail  of  the  material,  but  he  failed  to  secure  any 
general  agreement  with  his  conception.  Materialistic  ideas 
of  the  Eucharist  found  such  favor  that  when  Berengarius  of 
Tours,  who  lived  from  998  to  1088,  declared  against  them, 
asserting  that  the  Real  Presence  was  only  spiritually  con- 
ceived and  received,  the  Lateran  Council  of  1059  forced  him, 
under  threat  of  death,  to  recant  the  heresy.  One  of  its  indi- 
rect consequences  was  the  remarkable  statement  of  Guitmund 
of  Aversa,  that  the  entire  Person  of  the  Divine  Redeemer  was 
present  in  every  particle  of  the  associated  elements.  This 
St.  Thomas  subsequently  amplified  into  the  dogma  that  the 
Blood  was  contained  in  the  consecrated  wafer,  and  therefore 
the  cup  could  properly  be  withheld  from  the  laity.  Tran- 
substantiation  was  treated  by  Lanfranc  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  Realists,  who  sought  to  refine  the  coarse  materialism 
in  which  it  was  set  by  the  Nominalists.  He  emphasized  the 
distinction  between  the  universal  substance  held  to  be  present 
in  any  particular  thing  included  under  it,  and  those  accidents 
or  sensible  properties  which  appeared  only  when  the  pure 
form  clothed  itself  in  matter.  Accordingly,  by  the  act  of 
consecration  the  substance  of  the  elements  was  changed 
while  the  sensible  properties  remained  the  same.  It  is  clear 
from  this  reasoning  how  the  Roman  Catholic  belief  in  the 
Mass  came  to  be  based  upon  what  was  held  to  be  apostolic 
practice,  and  also  that  later  Realism  supplied  its  philosophi- 
cal ground.^  The  orthodox  standard  was  officially  an- 
nounced by  the  Church  at  the  Fourth  Lateran  Council,  in 
1215,  which  adopted  the  term  Transubstantiation  as  the 
expression  of  New  Testament  teaching.  The  summary  of 
that  teaching,  quoted  here  from  Roman  Catholic  sources, 
may  be  stated  as  follows :  Christ  is  really  and  truly  present 

>  See  Catholic  Encyclopsedia :   Article  on  Eucharist ;    p.  577. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  119 

in  the  Holy  Eucharist,  under  the  appearances  of  bread  and 
wine,  so  that  His  real  Body  and  Blood,  His  Soul,  and  His 
Divinity  are  present.  The  living  Christ  is  on  the  altar,  or  in 
the  consecrated  wafer.  The  change  that  takes  place  at  the 
moment  and  by  the  act  of  consecration  is  Transubstantia- 
tion ;  a  change  whereby  the  substance  of  the  bread  and  wine 
passes  over  into  the  substance  of  Christ,  who,  under  that  form 
of  bread  and  wine,  becomes  and  remains  present  so  long  as  the 
accidents  remain  uncorrupted.^ 

This  doctrine  had  been  gradually  accepted  in  the  Western 
Church,  tacitly  held  for  more  than  five  centuries,  and  for- 
mally and  authoritatively  enunciated  for  three.  Fortified 
by  the  learning  of  the  Schoolmen,  it  gradually  became  the 
citadel  of  priestly  power,  which  worked  a  daily  miracle 
before  the  adoring  faith  of  God's  believing  children.  In  the 
Sacrifice  of  the  Altar  they  found  the  offering  of  Supreme 
Love,  and  in  the  solemn  worship  that  surrounded  it  the  peace, 
rest,  and  meditation  belonging  to  eternal  realities  thus  divined 
and  appropriated.  From  his  youth  Wy cliff e  himself  had 
been  taught  to  revere  the  sacred  Ordinance,  and,  resolute 
innovator  though  he  was,  its  hold  upon  him  caused  him  to 
place  it  above  the  remaining  Sacraments  as  the  highest  and 
most  honorable  of  all.  He  was  convinced  that  no  other 
had  so  sure  a  guarantee  in  Holy  Scripture.  It  was  not  indeed 
the  Sacrament  itself,  but  rather  the  doctrine  of  the  change 
of  substance,  that  aroused  his  misgivings.  His  contribution 
to  Protestant  theology  under  this  head  did  not  go  beyond  the 
destruction  of  that  theory ;  it  was  left  to  Hus  to  deal  with 
the  denial  of  the  cup  to  the  laity,  and  to  Luther  to  contend 
against  the  sacrificial  feature  of  the  Mass.  For  a  long  time 
Wycliffe  accepted  the  interpretation  of  the  changing  sub- 
stance, and  there  are  no  hints  in  his  earlier  writings  of 
any  doubt  concerning  it.     On  the  contrary,  he  expressly 

1  See  Catholic  Encyclopaedia :  Article  on  Transubstantiation ;  p.  579. 
Also  "  Hierurgia  "  by  Dr.  Rock,  Chapter  I,  sections  3  and  4,  and  Chapter 
II,  section  1. 


120  THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

stated  in  the  "De  Dominio  Civili"  that  our  Lord,  there 
described  as  the  eternal  Prophet,  Priest,  and  King,  "was  a 
Priest  when  in  the  Supper  He  made  His  own  Body."  The 
clear  inferences  of  this  phrase  were  twofold :  first,  that  the 
words  of  Christ  effected  the  miracle;  and  again,  that  the 
oflBciating  priest,  who  stood  in  the  apostolical  succession, 
brought  it  to  pass  by  virtue  of  the  words  of  consecration 
which  he  repeated,  and  not  by  his  own  authority.  The  belief 
that  the  Body  of  Christ  was  present  under  the  accidents  of 
bread  and  wine  was  then  practically  universal,  and  this  is 
precisely  the  meaning  of  the  dogma  as  it  is  now  held. 

Beneath  all  his  deviations  Wycliffe  was  very  much  of  the 
Schoolman,  and  to  the  last  his  theological  positions  were 
conditioned  by  his  propensity  for  metaphysical  expressions. 
Hence  his  denial  of  Transubstantiation  was  directly  related 
to  the  theory  that  annihilation  was  a  fiction,  for  "  it  was  not 
in  the  power,  because  not  in  the  nature  of  God  to  annihilate 
anything."  This  adherence  to  philosophical  theories  in 
theological  discussion,  together  with  his  contempt  for  sacer- 
dotalism and  his  painful  experiences  with  the  superior  clergy 
and  the  mendicants,  helps  to  explain  his  rejection  of  the 
orthodox  view  of  the  Sacrament.  At  the  same  time  he  was 
eager  to  validate  and  safeguard  the  Ordinance  in  every 
possible  way,  but  his  study  of  the  Scriptures  and  of  the 
earlier  worship  of  the  Church  convinced  him  that  the  weight 
of  evidence  was  against  its  more  recent  developments. 

According  to  Wycliffe,  these  were  unknown  to  the  doctors 
of  the  early  Church;  medieval  sophistry  had  supplanted 
Biblical  and  patristic  teachings,  and  this  usurpation  had 
taken  place  three  hundred  years  previously,  when  "Satan 
was  unbound  for  a  millennium."  The  only  theories  of  the 
Eucharist  he  knew  at  his  transitional  moment  were  those  of 
Aquinas,  already  mentioned,  and  of  Scotus,  who,  on  the  basis 
of  his  doctrine  of  the  omnipotent  and  unconditioned  will  of 
the  Deity,  formed  the  conception  that  accidents  existed  inde- 
pendently of  their  substance.     If  this  was  so,  it  followed  that 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  121 

the  bread  and  wine  existed  independently  of  the  Body  of 
Christ.  Wy cliff e  urged  in  refutation  that  accidents  always 
presupposed  substance,  and  that  to  argue  otherwise  was  to 
indulge  a  nonsensical  plea  which  overthrew  the  very  nature  of 
the  Sacrament.  He  challenged  the  defenders  of  the  Mass  to 
define  what  was  properly  the  element  which  remained  after 
consecration ;  one  replied,  quantity ;  another,  quality ;  a 
third,  nothing.  Such  disagreement  demonstrated  the  unten- 
ableness  of  their  doctrine,  and  he  capped  his  opposition  with 
the  words  of  the  Gospel :  "  A  kingdom  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand."  Even  if  such  a  miracle  as  they  claimed  were 
possible,  it  was  superfluous,  for  why  should  bread  be  anni- 
hilated in  order  that  Christ's  Body  may  be  present  ?  When  a 
man  became  a  lord  or  prelate,  he  remained  the  same  being, 
notwithstanding  his  higher  rank.  So  it  was  with  Christ. 
He  did  not  cease  to  be  God  because  he  became  man.  In  like 
manner  the  substance  of  the  consecrated  wafer  was  not 
destroyed,  it  was  promoted  to  higher  uses.^ 

The  Reformer's  reasonings  showed  the  weakness  of  con- 
troversy; they  were  not  always  consistent,  and  there  are 
indications  that  he  had  at  one  time  sought  a  metaphysical 
interpretation  which  could  satisfy  the  demands  of  his 
mind,  while  conserving  his  reverence  for  the  Eucharist. 
In  his  expositions  of  its  nature  he  did  not  allow  his  mili- 
tancy to  carry  him  beyond  due  bounds,  nor  did  he  forfeit 
that  refined  devotion  which  is  for  religion  what  the  per- 
fume is  for  the  rose.  Theologically  he  held  that  the  bread 
and  wine  were  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ,  for  Christ 
had  so  ordained  them  at  the  Last  Supper;  the  words  of 
institution  contained  in  the  Gospel  were  conclusive  on  that 
point.  But  how  the  Lord  of  the  Feast  was  concealed  in  the 
elements  he  could  not  explain,  and  sometimes  lost  himself 
while  endeavoring  to  do  so.  He  saw  an  analogy  between  the 
Person  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  being  neither  solely  Creator,  nor 
solely  creature,  and  the  bread  of  the  altar  which  was  both 

>  G.  V.  Lechler :  "  Wycliffe  and  his  English  Precursors  "  ;  p.  347. 


122      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

earthly  and  heavenly;  real  bread,  and  at  the  same  time, 
the  real  Body.  The  Real  Presence  was  a  reality,  occa- 
sioned by  the  words  of  consecration,  which  were  necessary 
for  the  supernormal  change.  The  bread  and  wine  remained 
such,  but  also  became  in  verity  the  Body  and  Blood  of  the 
Redeemer.  Not  that  the  glorified  Body  of  Christ  descended 
from  Paradise  to  enter  the  elements :  He  was  present  in  an 
imponderable  and  intangible  manner,  as  the  soul  of  man  was 
present  in  his  body.  "The  Sacrament  of  the  altar,"  he  said, 
"  is  the  Body  of  Christ  in  the  form  of  bread  —  bread  in  a 
natural  manner,  and  Body  in  a  sacramental  manner,"  and 
the  communicant  spiritually  perceived  and  handled  the  Lord's 
Flesh  and  Blood  thus  concealed  in  the  Host.  Its  grace  and 
blessing  depended  upon  the  faith  of  the  recipient,  and  a  nice 
distinction  was  drawn  between  the  corporeal  and  spiritual 
taste  of  the  consecrated  elements.^  These  conclusions,  while 
differing  in  important  details,  are  closely  allied  to  the  Lu- 
theran theory  of  Consubstantiation. 

The  abuses  connected  with  the  worship  of  the  Altar  were 
condemned  by  Wycliffe,  whose  resentment  was  particularly 
aroused  against  the  clergy's  deliberate  use  of  the  Mass  to 
increase  their  power  and  importance  in  the  eyes  of  the  simple. 
"  Can  a  creature,"  he  demanded,  "  give  being  to  his  Creator  ?  " 
Some  who  pretended  to  do  so,  he  continued,  were  priests  of 
Baal,  not  of  Christ.  But  though  he  described  their  idea  of  the 
Mass  as  a  mischievous  fable,  he  did  not  correctly  estimate  its 
place  in  the  medieval  Church  as  the  keystone  of  her  doctrinal 
system  and  the  secret  of  her  organic  life.  The  bishops  pro- 
tested that  were  it  modified  or  relinquished,  the  faith  and 
obedience  of  communicants  would  be  subverted,  a  statement 
which  is  partly  justified  by  the  fact  that  the  hold  of  clericalism 
is  strongest  to-day  where  a  high  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist  is 
accepted.  This  assertion  is  made  with  the  knowledge  that 
there  are  in  Catholicism  not  less  than  four  permissible  ex- 

1  G.  V.  Lechler :   "  Wycliffe  and  his  English  Precursors  "  ;   pp.  332-361. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  123 

planations  of  the  dogma,  upon  which  there  has  been  as  yet  no 
authoritative  decision. 

The  uproar  following  Wycliffe's  revolt  showed  how  deeply 
entrenched  the  Mass  was  in  the  hearts  of  believers.  As 
early  as  1380  Chancellor  Berton  and  a  council  of  twelve 
members  condemned  his  theses,  and  forbade  the  Reformer 
to  lecture  at  the  University.  John  of  Gaunt  hurried  to 
Oxford  and  besought  his  advocate  not  to  meddle  with 
the  ark  of  the  Lord.  The  government  withdrew  its  patron- 
age from  him,  and  his  friends,  with  a  few  exceptions,  left 
him  to  encounter  the  hurricane  alone.  It  was  a  triumphal 
hour  for  Courtenay,  when,  as  it  seemed,  the  results  of  Wyc- 
liffe's  gigantic  labors  had  instantaneously  vanished.  Even 
at  this  juncture  he  might  have  retracted  and  yielded  to 
Gaunt's  importunities,  sacrificing  conviction  to  personal  gain 
and  remaining  the  eminent  doctor  and  teacher,  and  the 
chosen  advisor  of  princes.  There  is  little  doubt  that  the 
hierarchy  would  have  welcomed  and  rewarded  the  sub- 
mission of  its  most  gifted  and  formidable  foe.  But  such 
was  not  the  mettle  of  the  man  who,  whatever  his  failures 
and  shortcomings,  now  turned  his  back  upon  the  temptations 
of  place  and  power.  He  petitioned  the  throne  that  his  teach- 
ings should  be  publicly  expounded  in  the  churches  of  the 
nation,  and  continued,  undismayed,  his  resolute  efforts  in 
behalf  of  what  he  believed  to  be  the  truth  of  God. 


CHAPTER  IV 
PRINCES  AND  PEOPLE 


125 


Once  more  the  Church  is  seized  with  sudden  fear. 

And  at  her  call  is  Wyclif  disinhumed : 

Yea,  his  dry  bones  to  ashes  are  consumed 

And  flung  into  the  brook  that  travels  near ; 

Forthwith,  that  ancient  Voice,  which  Streams  can  hear, 

Thus  speaks  (that  Voice  which  walks  upon  the  wind, 

Though  seldom  heard  by  busy  human-kind)  — 

"As  thou  these  ashes,  little  Brook  !  wilt  bear 

Into  the  Avon,  Avon  to  the  tide 

Of  Severn,  Severn  to  the  narrow  seas, 

Into  main  Ocean  they,  this  deed  accurst 

An  emblem  yields  to  friends  and  enemies 

How  the  bold  Teacher's  Doctrine,  sanctified 

By  truth,  shall  spread,  throughout  the  world  dispersed." 

Wordsworth's  Ecclesiastical  Sonnets. 


126 


CHAPTER  IV 

PRINCES   AND   PEOPLE 

Political  life  of  England  in  the  fourteenth  century  —  The  wars 
with  France  —  The  Black  Prince  —  Edward  III  —  John  of  Gaunt  — • 
Social  conditions  in  England  —  The  Black  Death  and  its  effects  — 
Peasants'  Revolt  of  1381  —  Wy cliff e  accused  of  complicity  —  The 
Earthquake  Council  —  Wycliffe's  translation  of  the  Scriptures  —  Pur- 
vey's  version  —  Wycliffe's  Poor  Priests  —  Trialogus  —  Opus  Evangeli- 
cum  —  Cruciata  —  Wycliffe  cited  before  Urban  in  1384,  —  Illness  and 
death  —  Summary  of  his  character. 


The  history  of  religion  in  England  during  the  fourteenth 
century  is  largely  a  record  of  debates  and  differences  which 
affected  the  political  status  of  ecclesiasticism.  Yet  these 
controversies  and  Wycliffe's  part  in  them  were  but  one  phase 
of  the  life  of  the  commonwealth.  The  main  currents  of 
his  thought  and  action  can  be  best  ascertained  and  their 
background  surveyed  by  a  reference  to  the  fate  which  that 
generation  endured  in  peace,  in  war,  and  above  all  in  the 
pestilences  which  came  to  stay  for  the  next  four  centuries, 
and  caused  unparalleled  suffering  throughout  Europe.  The 
one  hundred  and  seventy-eight  years  which  elapsed  between 
the  death  of  the  first  Edward  and  the  accession  of  Henry  VH 
were  distracted  by  calamity  and  turmoil  at  home,  by  initial 
victory  and  ultimate  defeat  to  English  arms  abroad.  The 
Black  Death  and  the  Peasants'  Revolt  and  the  campaigns  in 
France  were  the  events  of  this  period  which  proved  to  be  most 
serious  and  lasting  in  their  consequences.  The  early  tri- 
umphs over  the  French  revealed  to  European  chivalry  the 
prowess  of  Edward  the  Third's  redoubtable  infantry  and  the 
archers  and  knifemen  of  Wales,  who,  under  his  strategy, 

127 


128      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

hurled  back  the  attack  of  the  French  knighthood  at  Crecy  in 
1346,  and,  though  four  times  outnumbered,  remained  the 
masters  of  the  field.  Ten  years  later,  the  Black  Prince, 
having  already  fought  as  a  lad  of  fourteen  under  his  father's 
eye  at  Crecy,  won  a  still  more  astounding  success  behind  the 
vineyards  of  Poitiers,  where  the  French  King  John,  surnamed 
the  Good,  was  taken  prisoner.  But  these  adventures  proved 
as  useless  as  they  were  brilliant ;  they  inflamed  that  military- 
arrogance  which  sought  occasions  for  a  quarrel ;  their  mone- 
tary cost  increased  by  leaps  and  bounds ;  and  the  baronage, 
which  seldom  vailed  its  crest  to  the  French  foe,  could  not 
long  endure  the  restraints  of  domestic  peace.  The  scions  of 
the  aristocracy,  who  respected  little  except  physical  force, 
fell  foul  of  one  another,  and  were  finally  exterminated  in  the 
ferocious  Wars  of  the  Roses. 

The  treaty  of  Bretigny,  confirmed  on  October  26,  1360,  by 
which  France  ceded  nearly  one  third  of  her  territory  to  Eng- 
land, ended  the  first  stage  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War.  The 
rewards  of  battle  enriched  the  cities  and  castles  of  Edward's 
Kingdom,  and  his  fiftieth  birthday  was  kept  with  the  pomp 
befitting  so  unexampled  a  conquest.  His  fame  rang  in 
all  men's  ears;  no  other  ruler  of  the  day  could  equal 
the  regalities  of  the  chief  prince  of  Christendom,  con- 
trasted as  they  were  with  the  distress  and  humiliation  of 
his  defeated  foes.  For  the  nonce  all  went  merrily,  and 
the  royal  court  was  the  scene  of  stately  ceremonials  and 
sumptuous  feastings.  At  this  apex  of  prosperity,  when  a 
moribund  phase  reasserted  itself,  deeds  of  valor  and  knightly 
defiance  were  commemorated  in  the  Round  Tower  at 
Windsor,  where  the  Order  of  the  Garter  was  established 
in  the  winter  of  1347,  shortly  after  the  king's  return  from 
France. 

But  the  suffering  and  discontent  of  the  people  were  in 
glaring  contrast  with  the  artificial  exuberance  of  their  rulers. 
The  laborers  of  six  surrovmding  counties  were  impressed  to 
build  Edward's  Tower,  and  his  Order  was  instituted  when 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  129 

nearly  every  household  in  the  land  lay  stricken  by  the  Plague. 
The  sycophantic  yet  observant  Froissart  gave  his  readers 
glimpses  of  an  impending  catastrophe.  He  complained  that  all 
was  not  well  with  England.  Notwithstanding  the  intoxica- 
tion of  militarism,  the  plain  folk  were  vindictive,  disloyal 
toward  their  superiors,  and  disdainful  of  foreigners.  A 
nearer  view  than  Froissart's  would  have  recognized  that  the 
disaffection,  which  began  as  early  as  1349,  was  due  to  ex- 
orbitant taxation,  to  other  economic  and  political  evils,  and 
to  the  incessant  demand  for  fresh  levies  to  defend  the  French 
possessions  of  the  Crown.  As  an  aftermath  of  these  excesses 
came  the  useless  expedition  of  February,  1367,  when  the 
Black  Prince  and  his  troops  marched  through  the  snowy 
dejfiles  of  the  Pyrenees  and  restored  Pedro  III  to  the  throne 
of  Castile.  This  gallant  campaign  cost  the  Prince  his 
health  and  bankrupted  his  exchequer,  while  the  monarch 
who  gained  a  temporary  advantage  from  it  was  utterly 
unworthy  of  its  sacrifices.  The  Prince's  Duchy  of  Aqui- 
taine  rose  in  rebellion  against  the  financial  measures 
necessary  to  discharge  his  huge  indebtedness.  In  September, 
1370,  he  turned  upon  the  city  of  Limoges,  where  the  insurrec- 
tion centered,  and  stormed  and  sacked  it  with  a  savagery 
that  left  a  dark  stain  upon  his  memory.  The  following 
spring  he  returned  home  to  languish  for  six  years  in  the  grip 
of  a  mysterious  malady  which  defied  the  primitive  remedies 
then  in  vogue,  and  was  aggravated  by  his  despair  over  the 
ruin  of  the  Plantagenet  sovereignty  in  France.  His  father, 
now  fast  approaching  senility,  had  transferred  the  manage- 
ment of  state  affairs  to  his  second  son,  John  of  Gaunt,  who 
ruled  by  the  fear  rather  than  the  affection  of  the  realm. 

Gaunt  was  unjustly  suspected  by  his  brother  of  designs 
upon  the  throne,  and  these  suspicions  were  heightened  by 
stories  of  favoritism,  corruption,  and  lawlessness  brought  to  the 
invalided  Prince  at  Kennington  Palace.  The  nation  now 
knew  that  its  beloved  hero  was  physically  shattered.  His 
prospective  subjects  were  dismayed  by  the  somber  clouds 


130     THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

which  spread  rapidly  over  the  horizon  of  their  future.  They 
had  relied  upon  his  wisdom  and  justice  no  less  than  upon  his 
prowess  in  the  field.  "Their  welfare,"  said  the  Chronicler 
of  Walsingham,  "seemed  bound  up  in  his  person.  It  had 
flourished  in  his  health,  it  languished  in  his  illness,  and 
perished  at  his  death ;  in  him  expired  all  the  hopes  of  the  Eng- 
lish." He  died  on  June  8,  1376,  in  his  forty-sixth  year,  at 
the  Palace  of  Westminster;  his  work  demolished,  his  spirit 
broken,  and  the  kingdom  seething  with  mutiny.  There 
was  no  available  space  among  the  royal  tombs  in  the  sacred 
mound  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  and  the  Prince  was  buried 
in  Canterbury  Cathedral,  where  the  arms  he  wore  in  battle 
are  hung  above  his  tomb.  His  separation  from  his  house, 
even  in  the  place  of  sepulture,  betokened  his  mute  protesta- 
tion against  the  degeneracy  of  the  father  "whose  folly  he 
had  vainly  tried  to  correct,  and  the  son  whose  doom  he 
might  foresee,  but  could  not  avert."  ^  Although  his  eulogists 
invested  him  with  some  virtues  he  did  not  possess,  his  charac- 
ter transcended  the  general  morals  of  the  time.  It  was  sullied 
by  the  violent  outbreak  at  Limoges,  an  act  foreign  to  his  nature 
and  committed  when  he  was  weak  and  irascible  from  con- 
tinued illness.  The  eloquent  and  discriminating  Bishop 
Brinton  of  Rochester  spoke  of  him  in  terms  of  respect  and 
praise,  and  the  majority  of  his  contemporaries  indorsed  the 
Bishop's  verdict. 

Eight  years  after  the  rejoicings  and  tournaments  which 
ushered  in  Edward  the  Third's  fiftieth  birthday,  he  had 
lost  nearly  all  his  territories  beyond  the  Channel.  The 
interminable  wars  with  France  had  broken  out  again;  the 
English  coasts  were  menaced  by  pirates ;  and  John  of  Gaunt's 
reactionary  Parliament  provoked  the  popular  wrath.  Alice 
Perrers,  the  king's  mistress,  decked  in  the  dead  Queen's 
jewels,  masqueraded  at  the  tilting  yards  as  the  Lady  of  the 
Sun.  She  sat  openly  at  the  judges'  side  in  the  law  courts, 
interfered  with  legislation,  and  dispensed  the  royal  patronage 

1  G.  M.  Trevelyan :    "England  in  the  Age  of  Wycliffe"  ;   p.  27. 


JOHN   WYCLIPFE  131 

to  her  flatterers.  On  the  jubilee  of  his  reign  Edward  granted 
a  general  amnesty,  which  proved  to  be  his  last  act  of  govern- 
ment. A  few  months  later,  on  June  21,  1377,  he  died  at  the 
royal  manor  of  Sheen,  robbed  by  his  leman  in  his  last  moments 
of  the  very  rings  on  his  fingers.  While  he  lay  in  the  final 
agony,  moaning  for  a  priest  to  shrive  him,  she  forsook  him  and 
fled ;  the  parasitical  ministers  also  hastened  away  to  greet 
the  new  monarch,  and  the  servants  of  the  household  plun- 
dered the  death  chamber.  Richard  II,  who  succeeded  his 
grandfather,  fulfilled  the  gloomy  destiny  of  the  Plantagenets. 
Beginning  as  a  handsome  and  promising  youth,  he  ended  as 
a  despised,  deposed,  and  murdered  king,  the  moody,  fitful, 
treacherous  "  Richard  the  Redeless,"  in  whom  none  could  put 
faith.  His  uncle,  John  of  Gaunt,  has  already  figured  in  this 
history  as  the  most  distinguished  political  personality  who 
offered  protection  to  Wycliff e.  The  Duke  took  his  name  from 
Ghent,  where  he  was  born  at  the  Abbey  of  St.  Bavon  in  1340, 
when  his  parents  were  in  Flanders  on  a  diplomatic  errand. 
He  inherited  the  stalwart  build  and  manly  features  of  the 
Angevins,  and  with  these  physical  traits  their  pride  and 
ambition.  Flashes  of  hereditary  distinction  from  time  to 
time  broke  through  his  haughty  reserve ;  he  was  a  pleasant 
companion  where  he  chose  to  award  his  preferences,  and  he 
had  the  courage  of  his  blood,  a  blind  courage,  however,  so  far 
as  his  generalship  was  concerned.  Poets  and  dramatists  and 
a  series  of  propitious  circumstances  have  combined  to  thrust 
celebrity  upon  him.  Chaucer  was  wont  to  frequent  his 
lordly  house  upon  the  Strand,  and  listen  to  the  "  softe  speeche  " 
of  the  golden-haired  lady  of  whom  he  sang  in  the  "  Booke  of 
the  Duchesse."  He  may  have  met  Wy cliff e  there,  since  the 
latter's  connection  with  the  Duke  required  their  frequent  in- 
tercourse. Gaunt  was  twice  married,  first  to  Blanche,  the 
youngest  daughter  of  Henry,  Duke  of  Lancaster,  whose  title 
and  estates  he  inherited,  and  next  to  Constance,  the  heiress  of 
Don  Pedro  of  Castile,  who  brought  him  additional  wealth 
and  honors.    To  these  marriages  the  great  feudatory  of  the 


132      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

fourteenth  century  owed  that  multiplicity  of  hereditary  claims 
with  which  he  was  ever  busy.  For  fifteen  years  he  was  the 
titular  king  of  Castile ;  for  twelve  the  ruler  of  England  in  all 
but  name ;  his  son  Henry  IV  seized  the  throne  from  Richard 
II,  and  his  heraldic  devices  are  still  found  on  the  arms  of 
Bordeaux,  and  are  carried  on  those  of  the  reigning  House  of 
Hanover. 

He  merited  no  such  preeminence,  either  as  a  strategist  or  as 
a  statesman.  The  people  understood  him  better  than  did 
Wycliffe,  and  they  hated  and  plotted  against  him  as  the  foe 
of  justice  and  liberty.  The  grotesque  exaggerations  of  his 
villanies  by  the  Monk  of  St.  Albans,  who  saw  him  "  playing 
Beelzebub  to  Wycliffe's  Lucifer,"  can  be  summarily  dis- 
missed. On  the  other  hand,  his  soldiers  spoke  kindly  of  a 
captain  who  seldom  led  them  successfully  in  battle,  and, 
while  neither  cursing  nor  blessing  him,  asserted  that  he  was 
never  guilty  of  that  most  serious  of  offenses,  disloyalty. 
How  narrowly  must  this  the  unpardonable  sin  of  medieval 
chivalry  have  been  avoided  by  a  leader  who  at  no  time  won 
distinction  for  fidelity !  Chaucer's  favorable  judgment  of 
him  is  less  trustworthy  than  that  of  his  troops,  because  it 
was  dictated  by  prepossessions  arising  from  friendship  and 
social  advantage.  And  if  Gaunt  was  true  to  the  interests  of 
class  and  party,  he  certainly  felt  no  impulse  to  repress  the 
tyrannies  of  which  they  were  guilty.  The  regenerating  zeal 
of  his  ancestor  Edward  I  was  not  in  him ;  on  the  contrary, 
he  subordinated  his  policies  to  the  schemes  of  a  selfish  and 
lordly  group  which  disguised  base  ends  beneath  professions  of 
heroism.  The  caste  of  which  he  was  the  representative  was 
as  ignoble  as  he ;  not  only  did  it  neglect  its  opportunities  for 
service,  but,  alert  to  suppress  effort  for  betterment  from  any 
quarter,  trampled  down  in  blood  the  rising  spirit  of  prog- 
ress. Subsequent  generations  have  forgiven  the  Duke's 
betrayal  of  the  people's  cause,  chiefly  for  the  reason 
that  he  relieved  the  poverty  of  Chaucer  and  rescued  Wyc- 
liffe  from  peril,  two  generous  acts  that  secured  for  him  the 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  133 

indorsement  of  Shakespeare  and  the  resounding  name,  "old 
John  of  Gaunt,  time-honored  Lancaster."  With  the  excep- 
tion of  Edward  I,  and  even  in  his  case  the  exception  is 
not  absolute,  the  Plantagenets  wasted  their  substance  and 
energy  upon  wild  escapades.  Those  who  witnessed  their 
ending  in  Richard  II  must  have  recalled  the  defiant  saying 
of  Coeur  de  I>ion,  "From  the  devil  we  came  and  to  the 
devil  we  shall  all  go."  Yet  laudable  objects  were  some- 
times accomplished  contrary  to  their  intention,  thus  making 
their  evil  an  unexpected  means  for  good.  The  rise  of  self- 
government  in  England,  of  national  unity  and  patriotic 
resistance  in  Scotland  and  France,  and  the  breaking  down 
of  commercial  barriers  between  the  island  kingdom  and  the 
continent,  should  be  weighed  against  deeds  which  in  them- 
selves were  high-handed  wrongs. 

We  may  now  turn  from  the  princes  of  the  period  to  the 
plain  people,  those  who  really  suffer  from  war  and  its  deadly 
allies,  famine  and  pestilence,  which  destroy  what  war  has 
spared  or  failed  to  reach.  From  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
to  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  century,  the  average  price  of 
wheat  was  thirty  dollars  a  quarter,  which  was  of  course  pro- 
hibitive for  the  peasantry.  Proclamations  were  issued  to 
cheapen  victuals,  but  without  effect.  Not  only  the  poor  but 
the  more  fortunate,  including  the  monks,  felt  the  pinch  of 
want.  Starvation  induced  disease,  and  the  epidemic  of  1349 
followed,  stalking  through  Oxford  during  Wycliffe's  residence 
there  and  blotting  out  the  thought  of  lesser  miseries  by  the 
extent  and  deadliness  of  its  contagion.  This  overwhelming 
calamity  which  befouled  England  and  the  European  coun- 
tries arose  in  Asia,  and,  according  to  Walsingham,  extended 
from  the  shores  of  China  to  those  of  Galway  in  Ireland.  It 
was  first  heard  of  in  its  western  course  at  a  small  Genoese 
fort  in  the  Crimean  peninsula,  whence  it  was  conveyed  to 
Constantinople  by  trading  vessels  whose  crews  lay  dying  on 
the  decks,  and  from  that  place,  traversing  the  entire  sea 
coasts,  was  borne  to  all  parts  of  Europe.     A  contemporary 


134      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

friar,  Michael  Platiensis,  has  left  a  graphic  account  of  the 
Plague  in  Sicily.  "A  most  deadly  pestilence,"  he  wrote, 
"sprang  up  over  the  entire  island.  It  happened  that  in  the 
month  of  October,  1347,  twelve  Genoese  ships,  flying  from  the 
divine  vengeance  which  our  Lord  for  their  sins  had  sent  upon 
them,  put  into  the  port  of  Messina,  bringing  with  them  such  a 
sickness  clinging  to  their  very  bones  that,  did  any  one  speak 
to  them,  he  was  directly  struck  with  a  mortal  sickness  from 
which  there  was  no  escape."  ^  Almost  simultaneously  with 
its  appearance  in  Italy  the  pestilence  obtained  a  foothold  in 
France,  and  was  carried  from  Calais,  then  an  English  posses- 
sion, to  the  Channel  Islands,  and  finally  into  England. 
Beginning  at  Melcombe  Regis,  or  Weymouth,  in  Dorsetshire, 
the  horrible  disease,  now  known  as  the  bubonic  plague, 
steadily  invaded  the  southwestern  and  midland  counties, 
and  on  the  first  of  November  passed  within  the  gates  of 
London.  Its  symptoms  developed  with  extreme  rapidity, 
and  inspired  such  terror  that  the  nearest  relatives  of  the 
stricken  shrank  from  the  ordinary  offices  of  charity.  "The 
sick  man  lay  languishing  alone  in  his  house  and  no  one  came 
near  him.  Those  most  dear  to  him,  regardless  of  the  ties  of 
kindred  or  affection,  withdrew  themselves  to  a  distance; 
the  doctor  did  not  come  to  him,  and  even  the  priest  with  fear 
and  trembling  administered  the  Sacraments  of  the  Church. 
Men  and  women,  racked  with  the  consuming  fever,  pleaded, 
but  in  vain,  for  a  draught  of  water,  and  uselessly  raved  for 
some  one  to  watch  at  their  bedside.  The  father  or  the  wife 
would  not  touch  the  corpse  of  child  or  husband  to  prepare  it 
for  the  grave,  or  follow  it  thither.  No  prayer  was  said,  nor 
solemn  office  sung,  nor  bell  tolled  for  the  funeral  of  even  the 
noblest  citizen ;  but  by  day  and  night  the  corpses  were  borne 
to  the  coEMnon  plague-pit  without  rite  or  ceremony."  ^ 

The  annals  of  its  ravages  in  England  are  found  in  the 
episcopal  registers,  monastic  chronicles,  and  town  records  of 
the  kingdom.     The  mortality  was  so  enormous  that  in  the 

»  Cardinal  Gasquet:  "The  Black  Death"  ;  p.  15.       *  Ibid,,  pp.  22-23. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  135 

words  of  a  writer  of  the  period,  "very  many  country 
towns  and  quarters  of  innumerable  cities  are  left  altogether 
without  inhabitants.  The  churches  or  cemeteries  before 
consecrated  did  not  suffice  for  the  dead;  but  new  places 
outside  the  cities  and  towns  were  at  that  time  dedicated  to 
that  use  by  people  and  bishops."  ^  Conservative  authorities 
agree  that  the  population  of  England  decreased  from  five 
millions  to  two  and  a  half  millions.  An  unconsciously 
pathetic  comment  upon  these  deplorable  statistics  is  found 
in  "Piers  Plowman,"  where  Langland  conceives  that  all  the 
people  of  the  realm  could  be  gathered  into  a  single  meadow 
to  hear  his  rebukes  and  exhortations.  His  imagination  will 
not  appear  at  fault  if  we  recall  that  the  entire  interval  of 
four  hundred  years  between  Wycliffe  and  Wesley  was  re- 
quired to  repeople  England  upon  the  scale  of  the  early  four- 
teenth century.  In  other  words,  the  England  of  George  I 
was  no  larger  in  numbers  than  that  of  Edward  II.  Still 
more  significantly,  the  realm  over  which  Henry  VII  reigned 
was  neither  as  enlightened  nor  as  humane  as  that  of  Edward 
I ;  by  the  time  the  first  of  the  Tudors  united  the  houses  of 
Lancaster  and  York  in  his  marriage,  repeated  wars  and  their 
accompaniments  had  worked  their  wicked  will  on  the  nation. 
The  strong  and  steady  progress  of  national  consolidation 
during  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  received  an 
effectual  check  in  Wycliffe's  day,  the  worst  disaster,  that  of 
the  pestilence,  descending  upon  a  country  already  stagger- 
ing beneath  the  burdens  of  a  protracted  and  indecisive 
conflict,  a  luxurious  and  licentious  court,  and  a  turbulent 
nobility. 

Yet  the  almost  universal  visitation  did  not  morally  chas- 
ten its  survivors,  who  manifested  a  stolid  indifference  to 
their  miserable  surroundings,  and  in  many  instances  gave 
way  to  the  lowest  passions.  Although  commerce  fared 
better   than    some    have    supposed,  the  overthrow   of   es- 

>  B.  Mus.  Cott.  M.  S.,  Vitell.,  A.  xx,  fol.  56,  quoted  by  Cardinal  Gasquet : 
"The  Black  Death"  ;   p.  187. 


136      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

tablished  conditions  was  so  severe  that  not  only  the  mon- 
asteries, but  also  the  Universities,  the  system  of  land 
tenure,  the  political  machinery,  the  art  and  architecture 
of  England,  alike  felt  the  cataclysmic  shock.  The  working 
classes,  however,  were  the  chief  sufferers,  and  their  diminu- 
tion brought  about  a  complete  social  change  which  ramified 
from  the  bottom  upwards.  The  selective  processes  of  the 
Plague  introduced  a  new  scale  of  life  and  manners,  and  so 
modified  or  revolutionized  the  agrarian  situation  that  there 
is  hardly  a  modern  economic  problem  that  cannot  be  traced 
to  them.  The  study  of  these  effects  verifies  two  conclusions  : 
first,  that  not  all  were  injurious,  and  second,  that  they  were 
met  and  borne  with  a  reckless  courage  which  did  much  to 
relieve  the  gravity  of  the  situation.  Medieval  England  was 
disgraced  by  transgressions,  but  she  was  also  disciplined  by 
hardships  which,  bitter  though  they  were,  could  not  obliter- 
ate the  color,  the  variety,  nor  the  joy  of  her  life.  The 
twentieth  century  peasant  knows  no  such  zest  and  gaiety  as 
blessed  his  ancestors,  who,  though  they  lacked  facilities  for 
prompt  material  recovery  from  the  ravages  of  the  scourge, 
were  not  hampered  by  the  fear  and  disillusionment  which  too 
often  sadden  the  prospect  of  the  modern  laborer.  All  who 
outrode  the  storm  had  shared  a  common  peril,  and  the 
frequency  with  which  they  had  looked  on  death  made  them 
despise  it.  Meanwhile  the  present  moment  was  their  own, 
and  they  built  again  the  world  they  knew,  undaunted 
by  difficulty  or  danger.  A  fatalistic  tinge  in  their  out- 
look taught  them  that  what  had  perished  had  perished, 
and  no  time  was  to  be  wasted  in  vain  regrets.  In  Europe 
great  names  arose  out  of  the  darkness,  St.  Roch,  St.  Cath- 
erine, Petrarch,  and  Gui  de  Chauliac.  The  era  bent,  but 
did  not  break ;  it  was  still  sufficiently  resilient  to  reassert  its 
vitality  and  guard  the  germinal  growth  of  freedom  and 
justice. 

If  constitutional  progress  was  retarded  it  was  at  least 
preserved.     The  national  consciousness  solidified  under  ad- 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  137 

versity,  and  was  still  resentful  of  foreign  dictation.  The 
men  who  believed  -with  Wycliffe  that  the  safety  and  well- 
being  of  the  kingdom  were  to  be  found  in  independence  of 
the  Holy  See  were  patriots.  But  patriotism  was  not  con- 
fined to  one  sect  or  faction ;  it  became  a  conscious  passion 
in  all  hearts.  Love  of  country  throbs  in  the  verse  of  Chaucer, 
than  whom  no  poet  was  ever  more  intensely  English  in  his 
character  and  sympathies.  The  nine  and  twenty  pilgrims 
of  the  Tabard  Inn  are  a  vivid  company,  standing  clearly 
against  the  misty  background  of  their  time.  His  inimitable 
descriptions  of  the  men  and  manners  of  his  native  land  made 
Chaucer  its  premier  poet.  Society  was  still  comparatively 
so  simple  that  his  narrative  was  able  to  embrace  most  of  the 
types  that  had  survived  the  Plague.  Wandering  by  the 
way  became  the  favorite  pursuit  of  all  classes.  Pilgrims  and 
travelers  were  everywhere  abroad,  exulting  in  the  freedom 
of  the  king's  highway,  and  presenting  at  once  the  unity  and 
the  diversity  of  medieval  life.  The  pedlar  and  the  pardoner, 
the  mendicant  and  the  outlaw,  the  juggler  and  the  gleeman, 
the  flagellant  and  the  soldier,  journeyed  cheek  by  jowl,  cast- 
ing admiring  or  envious  eyes  upon  the  cavalcades  of  royalty 
and  gentry  riding  past.  Knights  and  barons  entertained  one 
another  in  castles  and  manors,  and  counted  hospitality  a 
habit  of  courtesy  and  pleasure.  Franklins  and  merchants 
frequented  the  better  class  of  hostelries ;  the  alehouses  and 
meaner  inns  were  crowded  with  foresters  and  laborers.  The 
roads,  good  or  bad,  were  the  arteries  of  trade,  and  every  hall 
or  hut  a  medium  for  news.  There  the  nobles  met  in  nightly 
conclave;  the  "poor  priests"  kept  aglow  the  flame  of  a 
purer  faith ;  the  friars  fawned  or  threatened ;  and  the  serfs 
and  underlings  debated  their  wrongs,  which  were  so  unendur- 
able that  at  last  they  assumed  decisive  shape  in  the  most 
spontaneous  uprising  of  the  laboring  folk  that  ever  took  place 
in  England.^ 

1  G.  M.  Trevelyan :  "  England  in  the  Age  of  Wycliffe "  ;  p.  1. 


138      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

II 

During  the  two  years  preceding  the  Peasants'  Revolt  in 
the  spring  of  1381  Wy cliff e  remained  in  comparative  retire- 
ment at  Lutterworth.  The  Great  Schism  was  the  crucial 
point  in  his  public  life,  when  he  became  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  a  Protestant.  While  he  was  still  busy  berating  the 
popes,  sometimes  unjustly,  as  in  the  case  of  Gregory  XI,  and 
again  for  reasons  which  almost  excused  the  virulence  of  his 
language,  the  social  outbreak  occurred  which  forever  de- 
stroyed his  hopes  of  any  improvement  by  means  of  State 
interference.  During  one  month  the  volcanic  but  mercifully 
brief  terror  put  half  the  realm  in  arms ;  for  some  days  the 
existence  of  the  government  was  imperilled  by  the  efforts 
of  the  peasants  to  avenge  their  injuries.  The  causes  of  their 
rebellion  were  both  near  and  remote ;  they  extended  far  into 
the  past,  and  were  too  complicated  for  prolonged  examination 
here.  One  third  of  the  working  population  had  perished  in 
the  Plague,  and,  as  already  stated,  this  abnormal  depletion 
disorganized  agrarian  and  commercial  relations.  The  sur- 
vivors were  determined  to  get  rid  of  oppressive  usages  and 
secure  higher  wages.  The  lords  were  equally  resolved  to 
prevent  free  competition  in  labor  and  to  tighten  their  hold 
on  the  situation  with  bonds  of  their  own  choosing.  Stripes 
and  brandings  were  inflicted  on  stubborn  offenders.  Repres- 
sive legislation  begot  a  reckless  lawlessness  among  those 
whom  it  affected.  In  London  and  other  cities  the  guilds 
were  agitated  by  internal  difficulties  peculiar  to  themselves. 
The  stringent  provisions  of  some  charters  granted  to  towns 
by  spiritual  lords  and  abbots  added  to  the  friction.  The 
poll  tax  of  one  shilling  a  head  on  every  adult  person  in  the 
land  which  had  been  voted  by  the  Nottingham  Parliament 
of  1380  was  the  final  aggravation  in  a  quarrel  that  had  lasted 
for  more  than  thirty  years.  Then  came  the  terrific  explosion, 
astonishing  the  court  and  the  nobles,  stupefying  the  clergy, 
and   bewildering  the   administration.     But   the   source   of 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  139 

such  an  organized  resistance  lay  even  deeper  than  civic 
and  economic  causes.  England  was  besotted  by  the  lust  of 
militarism,  and  degenerated  by  the  vices  that  followed  in 
the  train  of  the  French  wars.  Impoverished,  weakened, 
betrayed,  the  nation  grew  desperate,  and  distrustful  of  its 
hereditary  leaders.  It  is  but  just  to  observe  that  the 
young  king  Richard  II  and  his  murdered  ministers,  Arch- 
bishop Sudbury  and  Sir  Richard  Hales,  were  not  altogether 
culpable  for  an  anarchy  which  they  did  not  create  and 
could  not  control.     The  line  of  Horace, 

"  Not  Heaven  itself  upon  the  past  hath  power," 

could  be  appropriately  applied  to  many  troubles  and  ob- 
stacles that  threatened  the  new  reign.  John  of  Gaunt,  who 
had  been  identified  with  the  enormities  of  his  father's  court, 
was  the  first  man  the  insurgents  singled  out  for  punishment. 
He  was  absent  in  Edinburgh  when  they  broke  loose,  or  he 
would  have  shared  the  fate  of  Sudbury  and  Hales ;  as  it  was, 
his  Palace  on  the  Strand,  stored  with  the  richest  treasures 
of  foreign  spoil,  went  up  in  flames.  The  insurrection  de- 
feated his  policies,  the  disendowment  of  the  Church  was 
postponed  to  the  time  of  an  equally  rapacious  and  more 
powerful  prince,  and  the  Duke's  influence  as  a  publicist  sus- 
tained irreparable  injury. 

The  immediate  results  were  a  callous  mockery  of  the  fine 
promises  and  unconfirmed  charters  which  Richard  readily 
gave  to  induce  the  rebels  to  return  to  their  homes.  His 
advisers  knew  that  parliamentary  action  was  necessary  to 
redeem  these  pledges,  and  also  that  it  would  be  impossible 
to  secure  any  such  consent.  Wat  Tyler  was  killed  at  Smith- 
field  in  the  presence  of  the  king ;  John  Ball,  a  forerunner  of 
modern  reform,  together  with  thousands  of  his  disciples,  paid 
for  their  untimely  efforts  with  their  lives.  For  the  moment, 
under  the  pressure  of  a  universal  danger,  the  regulars  and 
seculars  forgot  their  enmities,  and  the  bishops  made  peace 
with  the  friars.     Church  and  State  united  in  the  task  of 


140      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

torturing  and  hanging  their  victims,  many  of  whom  were 
executed  without  process  of  law.  Nobles  returned  to  their 
castles  from  their  hiding  places  in  the  woods,  and  resumed 
their  former  practices.  The  exhausted  passions  of  the  de- 
feated and  hunted  peasantry  left  them  helpless,  and  the  nation 
sank  back  into  apathy  and  neglect.  The  proletariat  forgot 
that  spasm  of  outraged  self-respect  which  had  caught  the 
barons  off  their  guard.  Chaucer's  glad  morning  song,  so 
surprising  in  this  dark  epoch,  waited  long  for  its  antiphony  in 

"Those  melodious  bursts  that  fill 
The  spacious  times  of  great  EUzabeth 
With  soimds  that  echo  still." 

Serfage  revived,  despite  the  brave  attempt  to  do  away  with 
its  abominations.  Yet  the  beneficiaries  of  feudalism  had 
received  a  wholesome  lesson,  not  the  less  impressive  because 
unaccompanied  by  the  nameless  horrors  of  the  Jacquerie  in 
France.  It  taught  the  proud,  self-sufficient  aristocrat  to 
beware  of  his  underlings,  and  he  at  least  understood  that 
fearful  possibilities  were  lodged  in  men  he  had  hitherto  de- 
spised. He  moved  more  cautiously  among  his  dwindling 
claims ;  the  system  of  villeinage  feebly  lingered  on  and  came 
to  an  almost  unobserved  end  in  the  days  of  the  Tudors. 

Wycliffe  did  not  escape  without  charges  of  implication  in 
these  movements ;  his  enemies  averred  that  he  had  been  "  a 
sower  of  strife,  who  by  his  serpent-like  instigations  had  set 
his  serf  against  his  lord."  Notwithstanding  the  dying  con- 
fessions of  John  Ball  and  Jack  Straw,  which  involved  him, 
there  is  no  proof  of  the  truth  of  their  accusations.^  He  had 
little  appreciable  influence  upon  the  purely  secular  aims  of 
the  insurgents,  who  were  bent  on  deliverance  from  practical 
grievances  in  which  spiritual  affairs  played  no  part.^  Uni- 
versity doctors  were  not  found  among  them,  and  John  Ball's 

1  We  hear  nothing  of  these  confessions  until  twenty  years  afterward. 
They  are  not  found  in  any  contemporary  chronicle,  and  were  probably 
extorted  by  the  rack. 

2  C.  Oman :   "  The  Great  Rebellion  of  1381 "  ;  p.  27. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  141 

itineraries  in  behalf  of  the  peasants  had  commenced  while 
Wy cliff e  was  still  an  undergraduate  at  Oxford.  But  his 
sweeping  declaration  that  "  every  righteous  man  is  lord  over 
the  whole  sensible  world"  could  easily  be  distorted  by  impul- 
sive orators  who  paid  no  regard  to  the  refined  subtleties  with 
which  he  qualified  the  statement.  In  any  case  he  did  not 
desert  the  persecuted  patriots  in  their  emergency.  They  had 
no  conception  of  the  communism  which  was  latent  in  his 
theories,  but  he  openly  avowed  his  sympathy  with  their 
demand  for  individual  freedom  and  his  anger  at  their  oppres- 
sion. He  stood  alone  in  his  plea  for  clemency,  and  by  this 
unselfish  attitude  still  further  separated  himself  from  the 
ruling  powers  and  the  nobles,  and  was  condemned  to  po- 
litical impotence.  His  consistent  conduct  furnished  an 
instructive  contrast  to  that  of  Luther  under  somewhat  similar 
circumstances  during  the  sixteenth  century.  The  Zwinglian 
heresies,  the  Rising  of  the  Anabaptists,  and  the  Peasants'  War 
of  that  era  were  the  logical  outcome  of  Luther's  theory  of  the 
right  of  private  judgment  and  dissent.  This  theory  had 
served  him  well  in  the  severance  of  his  allegiance  from  Rome, 
Yet  when  others  used  it  for  their  own  purposes  he  seceded 
from  the  people  to  the  princes,  complaining  loudly  of  the 
preachers  of  blood  and  treason  whom  the  devil  inspired  to  seek 
his  destruction,  and  impressing  upon  his  followers  the  neces- 
sity of  passive  obedience  to  the  State.  The  popular  phase 
of  his  Reformation  was  quickly  abandoned,  while  he  took 
refuge  in  the  arms  of  the  civil  power,  and  purchased  the  safety 
of  his  doctrine  by  the  sacrifice  of  its  freedom.^ 

If  Luther's  idealism  gave  place  to  compromise,  Wycliffe 
steadily  refused  to  surrender  his  convictions  or  be  silent 
upon  them.  "The  heresiarch  of  execrable  memory"  was 
cut  off  from  all  but  a  small  minority  of  his  supporters,  and  the 
unfortunate  coincidence  of  his  protest  against  the  endowments 
of  the  Church  and  the  pretensions  of  clerical  power  with  the 
insurrection  of  the  peasants  gave  Courtenay  an  opportunity 

1  Lord  Acton:    "Essays  on  Liberty"  ;    pp.  155-156. 


142      THREE    RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

to  suppress  opinions  which  he  beHeved  were  responsible  for 
the  death  of  his  predecessor,  Archbishop  Sudbury.  Wyc- 
liffe,  so  far  from  being  abashed  by  the  connection  of  his 
opinions  with  these  depredations,  reaffirmed  his  position  on 
questions  of  controversy.  He  denied  Transubstantiation 
afresh,  after  having  appealed  to  the  king  in  1381  for  secular 
help  in  a  purely  theological  issue.  In  reply  to  Gaunt's 
earnest  request  that  he  should  rest  his  case,  he  memorialized 
Parliament  in  1382  with  a  lengthy  petition,  wherein  he 
recited  a  list  of  grievances  and  asked  that  the  Statutes  of 
Provisors  and  Praemunire  be  enforced  against  the  Pope, 
above  all  urging  that  "Christ's  teaching  concerning  the 
Eucharist  may  be  openly  taught  in  churches." 

The  Archbishop  retaliated  by  convening  the  "  Earthquake 
Council"  on  May  21  of  that  year  at  the  House  of  the  Black 
Friars  in  London.  The  assembly  derived  its  name  from  the 
occurrence  of  a  seismic  disturbance  during  its  proceedings. 
This  was  construed  by  the  Wyclifhans  as  a  sign  of  Heaven's 
wrath  against  the  higher  clergy,  and  by  the  prelates  as  a 
token  of  its  approval  of  their  efforts  to  expel  heterodoxy 
from  the  bosom  of  the  Church.  Of  the  twenty-four  Articles 
examined  ten  were  pronounced  heretical,  and  fourteen  errone- 
ous. The  Council,  in  condemning  the  Reformer's  doctrines, 
also  struck  at  the  University  which  had  nurtured  them. 
Courtenay  and  the  regulars,  aided  by  Richard  II,  won  the 
fight  against  the  doctors  and  students  who  prized  religious 
and  intellectual  freedom.  Dr.  Rigg,  the  Chancellor,  who 
had  hitherto  favored  Wycliffe,  was  summoned  to  Lambeth 
and  warned  by  the  bishops  and  the  Privy  Council  that  his 
support  of  the  Lollard  Repyngdon  as  against  Stokes  must 
cease,  the  disaffected  be  subdued,  and  concord  restored. 
The  seculars  who  had  exhorted  the  LIniversity  authorities 
to  expel  all  friars  and  monks  were  themselves  excluded. 
A  Convocation  for  the  suppression  of  heresy  met  at  Oxford  ; 
the  royal  writ  ordered  a  monthly  inquisition  upon  the  fol- 
lowers and  the  works  of  Wycliffe,  and  within  half  a  year  the 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  143 

second  school  of  the  CathoHc  Church  was  recovered  to 
orthodoxy  at  the  expense  of  her  academic  standing  in 
Europe.  The  inquisitors  made  a  desolation  and  called  it 
peace,  and  Courtenay  unwittingly  became  one  of  the  greatest 
enemies  to  Oxford's  reputation  for  scholarship  she  has  ever 
known.  The  University  sank  into  stupor  and  decline; 
speculation  was  throttled ;  Cambridge  was  regarded  by 
cautious  parents  as  the  place  unvexed  by  reactionary 
ecclesiasticism,  and  Paris  regained  the  intellectual  eminence 
Oxford  had  so  long  disputed.  Thus  the  later  medieval 
period  of  the  University's  leadership  ended  with  Wycliffe; 
Courtenay  could  not  cope  with  the  vigorous  dialectic  of  the 
last  of  the  Schoolmen,  but  he  could  and  he  did  unreservedly 
destroy  Oxford's  capacity  to  produce  another  like  him. 

Cast  down,  but  not  dismayed,  Wycliffe  was  now  beyond 
the  pale  of  the  Church  and  of  the  Schools.  Yet  he  was  of  that 
type  of  men  who  hope, 

"And  see  their  hope  frustrate, 
And  hope  anew." 

He  was  enough  of  the  ascetic  to  despise  the  lures  of  the  world ; 
of  the  man  of  affairs  to  know  the  deceptions  of  political  strife ; 
of  the  saint  to  regard  that  which  he  held  as  truth  as  more  im- 
portant than  place  or  power.  The  material  side  of  life  was 
for  him  reduced  to  a  minimum,  and,  although  ambitious,  he 
desired  no  influence  which  required  him  to  subject  his  con- 
science to  the  incitements  of  temporary  convenience  or 
success.  His  last  days  at  Lutterworth  were  spent  in  appeals 
to  the  people  at  large,  in  which  his  further  separation  from 
sacerdotalism  was  evident  in  the  unwise  declaration  that 
preaching  is  of  more  value  than  the  administration  of  any 
sacrament.  He  forsook  learned  clerks  and  titled  supporters 
for  the  weavers  and  artisans  of  Norwich  and  Leicester,  and 
devoted  the  remainder  of  his  life  to  its  most  notable  achieve- 
ment, the  translation  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Henry  of 
Knighton,  a  canon  of  Leicester  during  the  second  half  of 


144      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

the  fourteenth  century,  and  a  fierce  hater  of  the  Lollards, 
complained  that  Wycliffe's  action  in  translating  the  Scrip- 
tures "which  Christ  gave  to  the  clergy  and  doctors  of  the 
Church"  had  scattered  abroad  the  pearls  of  the  Gospel  to 
be  "trodden  under  foot  by  swine"  ;  "the  jewel  of  clerics  was 
turned  to  the  sport  of  the  laity."  ^ 

The  Reformer's  previous  insistence  upon  the  supremacy 
of  the  Sacred  Writings  had  obtained  for  him,  while  still  at 
Oxford,  the  title  of  "Doctor  Evangelicus."  In  his  attack 
upon  dogmatism  or  in  defense  of  his  own  conclusions,  he 
unhesitatingly  used  quotations  from  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  as  final  proofs,  setting  aside  the  weightiest 
traditions  in  their  behalf.  "Neither  the  testimony  of  Au- 
gustine nor  Jerome,  nor  any  other  saint,  should  be  accepted 
except  in  so  far  as  it  was  based  upon  Scripture,"  and  to 
this  he  added  the  assertion  that  every  man  had  the  right  to 
examine  the  Bible  for  himself. 

The  quotation  from  Knighton  contains  the  substance  of 
similar  animadversions  against  Wycliffe's  enterprise,  which, 
nevertheless,  was  justified  by  the  example  of  primitive  Chris- 
tianity. For  the  right  of  religious  independence  must  have 
been  tacitly  assumed  by  the  early  Christians  to  justify  their 
position,  and  the  publicity  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  was 
presupposed  in  the  works  of  the  apologists  of  the  second  cen- 
tury. Even  so  late  as  the  fourth  century  no  dignitary  of  the 
Church  dreamt  of  forbidding  the  reading  and  interpretation 
of  the  Bible  by  the  laity.  On  the  contrary,  Origen  held  that 
it  was  the  purpose  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  Scriptures  to  be 
intelligible  to  those  who  were  uneducated  and  insignificant 
in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  Theodoret,  who  shared  the  current 
presumption  that  the  Scriptures  needed  defense  as  literature, 
in  a  burst  of  eloquence  turned  this  lack  to  gain,  declaring 
that  "all  the  heralds  of  the  truth,  to  wit  the  Prophets  and 
Apostles,  though  unendowed  with  the  Greek  gift  of  eloquence, 

>  At  that  time  Knighton  was  dead.  The  author  whose  records  are  quoted 
here  is  known  as  his  "Continuator." 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  145 

were  yet  filled  with  true  wisdom,  brought  to  all  nations  both 
Hellenic  and  Barbarian  the  divine  doctrine,  and  filled  all 
lands  and  seas  with  their  writings,  whose  content  is  virtue 
and  piety.  And  now  all  men  having  renounced  the  follies 
of  the  philosophers,  feast  upon  the  doctrines  of  fishermen 
and  publicans  and  reverence  the  words  of  the  Tent-maker."  ^ 
Chrysostom  recommended  that  the  sight  of  the  Bible  should 
be  so  familiar  to  children  as  to  form  a  necessary  part  of  their 
home  scenery,  and  poetically  remarked  that  *'  the  very  touch 
of  the  Book  of  the  Gospels  of  itself  awakens  the  heart."  ^ 
Had  these  counsels  been  heeded  in  after  times,  the  false  step 
taken  by  the  Church  when  she  began  to  withdraw  the  Scrip- 
tures from  the  laity  and  place  them  in  the  custody  of  eccle- 
siastical tradition  might  have  been  avoided.  Nor  could 
the  unchecked  sacerdotalism  that  ensued  have  escaped  the 
restrictions  imposed  by  a  better  acquaintance  with  the 
Bible. 

The  entire  Old  Testament  and  the  greater  part  of  the  New 
were  translated  into  the  French  language  before  the  middle 
of  the  fourteenth  century.  England  was  not  so  fortunate : 
the  Anglo-Saxon  versions,  some  manuscripts  of  which  are 
as  late  as  the  twelfth  century,  had  become  unintelligible 
by  Wycliffe's  time,  with  the  result  that,  although  the  Bible 
was  fairly  well  known  among  the  clergy  and  superior  lay- 
men, the  masses  were  utterly  ignorant  of  it,  and  had  no 
means  of  being  otherwise.  Anglo-Norman  was  then  the 
speech  of  the  schools,  the  colleges,  the  courts  of  law,  and 
polite  society.  English  prevailed  among  the  humbler  classes 
and  the  tillers  of  the  soil.  It  is  not  certain  that  Edward  III 
could  address  the  Commons  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  as  Henry 
IV  took  pains  to  do  when  he  appeared  before  them  to  claim 
the  throne.  Yet  by  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
French  had  become  a  sickly  exotic  and  English  had  sup- 
planted it  as  the  official  language,  first  in  the  courts,  and 

1  Harnack  :   "Bible  Reading  in  the  Early  Church"  ;   p.  90. 
^Ibid.,  p.  101. 


146      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

later  in  Parliament.  A  doctor  of  laws  confessed  in  1404, 
"We  are  as  ignorant  of  French  as  of  Hebrew."  John  de 
Trevisa  attributed  its  sudden  disappearance  to  the  Plague, 
but  the  decline  antedated  this  event,  and,  despite  legislative 
efforts  to  arrest  it,  the  use  of  French  gradually  diminished. 
It  may  have  survived  in  Parliamentary  debates,  however,  for 
fifty  years  after  Chaucer's  death.^  The  statutes  of  the  realm 
continued  to  be  published  in  French  until  the  reign  of  Henry 
VIII.  One  of  the  main  factors  which  contributed  to  the 
spread  of  English  was  the  friars'  preaching  in  that  lan- 
guage throughout  the  country,  a  habit  which  goes  far  to 
explain  their  hold  upon  the  people.  Another  factor  was  the 
important  aid  Chaucer  rendered  by  welding  the  strength  of 
both  into  one  speech  different  from  either,  superior  in 
the  richness  of  its  vocabulary  and  the  simplicity  of  its 
structure,  and  which  became  the  life  blood  of  the  new  nation- 
alism. From  his  day  to  our  own  the  development  and  ex- 
pansion of  English  have  gone  steadily  forward;  but  the 
poet's  largest  service  to  the  mother  tongue  was  the  pref- 
erence he  awarded  it  during  a  bilingual  period,  a  literary 
precedent  which  later  writers  were  constrained  to  follow. 

This  transition  from  French  to  English  deprived  the  ver- 
sions of  the  Bible  in  the  earlier  language  of  their  usefulness, 
and  an  attempt  was  made  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  situation 
by  partial  translations,  including  the  Psalms,  which  were 
made  into  English  in  1320  and  1340.  The  first  of  these  is 
ascribed  doubtfully  to  William  of  Shoreham  ;  the  second,  to 
Richard  Rolle,  the  hermit  of  Hampole.^  Both  men  used  the 
Vulgate  as  a  basis,  and  their  work  was  provincial  in  dialect 

*  Parliament  was  first  opened  with  an  English  speech  in  1363 ;  and  with 
an  English  sermon  by  Courtenay,  in  1381.  This  will  indicate  that  the  de- 
bates may  have  been  in  English,  although  their  reports  were  actually  pub- 
lished in  French. 

*  Rolle  was  born  in  Yorkshire  about  1290,  and  died  at  Hampole  in  1349. 
He  was  one  of  the  first  religious  authors  to  write  in  the  native  language, 
which  he  used  for  the  instruction  of  those  who  knew  no  Latin.  His  poetical 
manuscript,  "The  Pricke  of  Conscience,"  is  freely  quoted  by  Warton  in  his 
"History  of  English  Poetry." 


JOHN  WYCLIFFE  147 

and  circulation.  But  to  Wycliffe  and  his  coadjutors  in  the 
task  belongs  the  credit  of  first  setting  forth  the  whole  Scrip- 
tures in  their  own  speech,  an  indescribably  meritorious 
achievement,  and  the  first  fruits  of  a  series  of  versions  which 
have  to  a  large  extent  molded  the  nature  and  determined  the 
course  of  English  civilization.  From  the  literary  standpoint, 
Wycliffe's  translation  was  a  contribution  to  that  move- 
ment in  which,  as  we  have  seen,  Chaucer  was  the  central 
figure,  and  his  version  should  be  viewed  in  that  relation.  Of 
necessity  a  translation  of  such  intrinsic  worth,  and  one 
which  so  closely  affected  the  spiritual  interests  and  ideals  of 
the  nation,  could  not  have  been  woven  into  its  life  and 
character  without  considerable  benefit  to  the  language. 
But  Wycliffe  was  not  a  stylist  in  the  larger  meaning  of 
the  term,  and  the  relatively  rudimentary  condition  of 
the  language  made  it  impossible  to  produce  a  finished 
rendering  like  that  of  the  translation  of  1611.  Indeed,  the 
Authorized  Version  stands  apart  from  all  others,  "equally 
untouched  by  the  splendor  of  Elizabethan  and  the  extrava- 
gance of  Jacobean  prose,"  and  marked  by  the  noble  simplicity 
of  ancient  times.  Wycliffe's  version  owed  much  to  its  later 
revision  by  his  curate  Purvey,  who,  in  or  about  1388, 
smoothed  out  the  harsh  literalness  of  the  original  and  sub- 
stituted short  marginal  comments,  many  of  which  were  taken 
from  Nicholas  de  Lyra,  for  the  frequent  glosses  of  the  text. 
The  desire  of  Wycliffe  and  of  Nicholas  of  Hereford,  who 
was  his  chief  assistant  in  the  rendition  of  the  Old  Testament, 
to  be  scrupulously  faithful  to  the  Latin  of  the  Vulgate  was 
the  source  of  the  pedantries  and  obscurities  which  are  found 
in  their  work.  Others  besides  Nicholas  and  Purvey  must 
have  cooperated  in  an  enterprise  of  such  magnitude,  and  the 
multiplication  of  copies  proceeded  so  rapidly  that  of  the  one 
hundred  and  seventy  existing  manuscripts  the  majority  were 
written  within  forty  years  after  the  completion  of  the  trans- 
lation, 

Purvey's  version,  which  should  be  carefully  distinguished 


148      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

from  Wycliffe's,  was  eagerly  sought  and  read  by  all  who  could 
obtain  it.  The  princes  of  the  royal  house  and  the  sovereign 
himself  did  not  disdain  to  possess  it.  Nor  was  there  any 
formal  condemnation  of  the  first  English  Bible.  The  assump- 
tion of  sectarian  writers  that  the  medieval  Church  prohibited 
the  translation  and  circulation  of  the  Scriptures  is  contra- 
dicted by  the  fact  that  manuscripts  were  plentiful  both  in 
England  and  on  the  continent.  Although  printing  was  not 
yet  invented,  Germany  had  fifty  complete  and  seventy-two 
incomplete  versions.  Seventeen  printed  editions  of  the  Bible 
preceded  the  great  version  of  Luther.  The  French  transla- 
tions extensively  used  in  England  have  been  named.  Arch- 
bishop Arundel,  the  burner  of  heretics,  commended  Queen 
Anne  of  Bohemia,  consort  of  Richard  II,  for  having  owned  in 
English  "all  the  four  gospels  with  the  doctors  upon  them." 
Wycliffe's  reiterated  appeals  to  the  support  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, uttered  long  before  his  translation  was  made,  would 
have  no  meaning  for  a  clerical  body  unacquainted  with  them. 
Such  were  the  principal  circumstances  connected  with  the 
memorable  versions  of  Wycliffe  and  Purvey,  the  earliest 
rendering  of  the  complete  Bible  England  possessed  in  her 
own  language.^ 

Cardinal  Gasquet  ^  has  advanced  the  theory  that  the  so- 
called  Wycliffe  translation  is  reallj^  a  "Catholic  Bible,"  and 
some  extreme  Anglicans  have  taught  this  supposition.  He 
emphasizes  the  fact  that  there  was  nothing  in  Wycliffe's 
writings  to  show  that  he  had  either  translated  or  attempted 
to  translate  the  Holy  Scriptures.  While  this  is  true,  it 
should  also  be  noted  that  those  writings  are  full  of  passages 
advocating  such  a  translation.  His  intimacy  with  the  Bible 
had  been  one  of  the  governing  forces  of  his  life,  and  his  grow- 

1  For  Wycliffe's  and  Purvey's  Bible  see  the  account  in  the  preface  to 
Forshall  and  Madden's  edition. 

^  This  distinguished  prelate  and  scholar  was  appointed  in  1907  by  the 
late  Pope,  Pius  X,  President  of  a  Commission  for  the  revision  of  the  Vulgate, 
to  restore  it,  as  nearly  as  possible,  to  the  pure  text  of  St.  Jerome ;  a  task 
which  is  not  likely  to  be  completed  for  many  years. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  149 

ing  sense  of  dependence  upon  its  sanction  finally  obtained 
an  absolute  control  over  his  intellectual  processes  and  re- 
ligious views.  It  also  dictated  his  rejection  of  the  vener- 
able dogmas  and  solemn  mysticism  of  his  Church,  a  course 
which  found  its  justification  in  his  belief  that  "the  New 
Testament  is  full  of  authority  and  open  to  the  understand- 
ing of  simple  men,  as  to  the  points  that  be  most  needful  to 
salvation."  Lechler's  surmise  that  the  perilous  conditions 
of  the  time  imposed  a  prudent  silence  on  those  responsible 
for  such  an  undertaking  is  not  convincing:  secrecy  and 
subterfuge  were  foreign  to  Wycliffe's  character,  and  he  had 
scanty  regard  for  men  who  differed  from  him.  His  courage 
drew  him  from  the  set  paths  which  pierced  the  jungle  of 
medieval  life,  and  he  thrust  his  way  in  new  directions,  ac- 
companied by  some  who,  although  they  lacked  his  audacity 
and  endurance,  were  prepared  to  help  him. 

Moreover,  while  the  claim  that  Wycliffe  translated  the 
version  attributed  to  him  is  not  invalidated  by  arguments 
derived  from  silence,  its  probability  is  confirmed  by  con- 
temporary evidence,  corroborating  the  testimony  of  Knigh- 
ton already  given.  At  the  Synod  held  at  St.  Frideswide's, 
Oxford,  on  November  28,  1407,  an  edict  was  passed  adverse 
to  any  version  of  Scripture  texts  "  by  questionable  hands  with- 
out authoritative  sanction."  The  provisions  enacted  at  the 
Synod  and  afterwards  promulgated  at  St.  Paul's,  London,^ 
granted  the  bishops  power  to  control  the  circulation  of  the 
volume  without  positively  proscribing  it.  Archbishop  Arun- 
del and  his  suffragans,  addressing  Pope  John  XXIII  in  1412, 
accused  Wycliffe,  "  the  child  of  the  old  serpent  and  fosterling 
of  Antichrist,"  with  having  devised,  in  order  to  fill  up  the 
measure  of  his  malice  against  the  Church,  the  plan  of  a  trans- 
lation of  the  Scriptures  into  his  mother  tongue.  John  Hus 
affirmed  in  a  polemical  tract  issued  during  1411 :  "It  is  plain 
from  his  writings  that  Wycliffe  was  not  a  German,  but  an 
Englishman ;  for  the  English  say  that  he  translated  the  whole 

'  The  date  of  the  promulgation  is  given  as  January  14,  1409. 


150      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

Bible  from  Latin  into  English."  These  and  other  quotations 
of  a  similar  character  support  two  conclusions :  first,  that 
Wycliffe's  reputed  work  was  actually  his  own;  and  again, 
that  it  escaped,  to  some  extent,  the  inhibitions  of  the  eccle- 
siastics. 

Cardinal  Gasquet's  further  contention  that  an  earlier 
English  version  than  that  of  Wycliffe  existed  is  founded  on 
refutable  statements.  Sir  Thomas  More,  who  is  his  authority 
for  this  assertion,  remarked  in  his  "Dialogue"  that  he  had 
seen  "  Bibles  fair  and  old  written  in  English,  which  have  been 
known  and  seen  by  the  bishop  of  the  diocese  and  left  in 
laymen's  hands  .  .  .  who  used  them  with  devotion  and 
soberness."  He  added  that  the  "  Holy  Bible  was  long  before 
Wycliffe's  day  by  virtuous  and  learned  men  translated  into 
the  English  tongue."  ^  Since  More  did  not  know  Purvey 's 
version  when  he  saw  it,  it  is  very  probable  that  he  mistook 
that  version  for  an  earlier  work.  He  strongly  condemned  this 
translation  of  heretics  who  purposely  corrupted  the  holy  text, 
as  he  accused  Wycliffe  of  doing,  while  he  was  totally  unaware 
that  the  English  Bibles  of  his  friend  Bishop  Bonner  and  of 
other  orthodox  persons  and  of  numerous  churches  and  con- 
vents were  copies  of  Purvey's  version.  More  was  not  alone 
in  his  confusion  of  the  two  editions  of  Wycliffe's  Bible  as 
distinct  translations.  Until  a  comparatively  recent  period 
all  writers  mistook  Purvey's  revision  for  a  translation  anterior 
to  Wycliffe's.  The  assurance  that  Wycliffe  and  his  associates 
translated  the  Bible  into  English,  that  their  translation  was 
the  first  complete  version  thus  made,  and  that  Purvey  re- 
vised it  to  its  great  benefit,  is  too  well  attested  to  be  easily 
disturbed. 

Bishop  Westcott  shows  that  the  history  of  the  English 
Bible,  as  we  now  have  it,  began  with  the  work  of  William 
Tyndale,  rather  than  with  that  of  Wycliffe.     Tyndale  him- 

1  Light  has  been  shed  upon  the  question  of  the  Old  English  Version  by  a 
work  of  A.  C.  Panes,  entitled  "The  Fourteenth  Century  English  Biblical 
Version"  (1902),  showing  that  there  was  an  independent  translation  of 
some  parts  of  the  New  Testament  made  before  Wycliffe. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  151 

self  stated  that  he  was  not  "holpen  with  EngUsh  of  any 
that  had  interpreted  the  same  or  such  hke  thing  in  the  Scrip- 
ture beforehand."  Yet  the  two  men,  though  separated  by  a 
century  and  a  half  of  time,  were  of  the  same  spiritual  gene- 
alogy, and  one  in  the  loving  veneration  for  the  Scriptures 
which  actuated  their  labors.  The  translation  by  Wy cliff e 
stands  apart,  like  a  mountain  separated  and  remote  from 
meaner  ranges,  bearing  the  marks  of  primeval  origin ;  in  its 
solitary  and  rugged  grandeur  a  fitting  monument  and  witness 
to  the  'Doctor  Evangelicus,'  to  his  unwearied  patience  and 
prodigious  toil. 

Ill 

His  separation  from  Oxford  isolated  him  as  a  scholar ;  the 
lack  of  mechanical  means  for  the  diffusion  of  his  teachings, 
and  his  conflict  with  the  hierarchy  drove  him  to  copy  the 
methods  of  St.  Francis,  and  his  ripening  experience  convinced 
him  that  the  organized  societies  within  the  Church  were 
backslidden  sects  which  could  not  prevent  her  decay.  To 
obviate  this  he  adopted  the  extraordinary  measure  of  institut- 
ing an  order  of  poor  priests,  who  were  sent  out  to  declare  the 
message  of  the  New  Testament  in  the  rejuvenated  spirit 
of  the  earlier  friars.  Lutterworth  became  the  headquarters 
for  these  evangelists,  some  of  whom  were  Oxford  graduates 
who  had  felt  the  impulse  of  Wycliffe's  influence  while  he 
was  still  at  the  University,  but  the  majority  were  unlettered 
men.  Although  at  first  ordained,  the  demands  of  their 
mission  superseded  clerical  limitations  and  laymen  were 
soon  found  among  them.  In  Wycliffe's  later  writings  they 
were  no  longer  called  "simplices  sacerdotes,"  but  "viri 
apostolici "  or  "  evangelici."  A  remarkably  effective  preacher 
himself,  Wycliffe  carried  the  betterment  of  preaching  upon 
his  heart,  and  many  of  his  sermons  and  addresses  were 
directed  to  that  end.  He  complained  that  useless  specula- 
tions, legends,  tales,  and  fables  were  substituted  for  Scrip- 
tural   instruction,   and   that   ornamented    rhetoric    marred 


152     THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

the  pulpit  utterances  of  the  better  sort  of  clergy.  Had  he 
not  been  constrained  to  examine  and  reject  the  intellectual 
foundation  of  Catholic  belief,  he  might  have  shared  the  honors 
of  St.  Francis  and  St.  Dominic  as  the  founder  of  another 
order  of  preaching  friars.  His  own  prototypes  of  Wesley's 
helpers  were  superior  to  the  regular  ecclesiastics  in  self- 
effacing  zeal.  They  shared  that  collective  sagacity  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  folk  which  has  sometimes  outwitted  the  designs 
of  the  wise  and  the  noble.  Poverty  and  plainness  of  speech 
gave  them  ready  access  to  their  countrymen.  Clad  in  a  rustic 
garb  of  undressed  wool,  dependent  on  charity  for  their  daily 
bread,  provided  only  with  a  pilgrim  staff  and  a  few  pages  from 
Wycliffe's  tractates  or  sermons  as  the  staple  of  their  brief  and 
pointed  homilies,  they  survived  the  contempt  of  the  hier- 
archy and  secured  the  good-will  of  the  people.  Courtenay, 
whose  aversion  to  such  men  and  measures  can  be  imagined, 
referred  to  them  as  wolves  in  sheep's  clothing.  Their  suc- 
cess, which  exceeded  the  most  sanguine  expectations,  was 
confessed  in  the  exaggerated  avowal  of  Knighton  that  the 
"  sect  was  held  in  the  greatest  honor  and  multiplied  so  that 
you  could  scarce  meet  two  men  by  the  way  whereof  one  was 
not  a  disciple  of  Wy cliff e."  ^ 

Under  such  auspices,  the  heart  of  the  rector  of  Lutter- 
worth seemed  proof  against  the  frosts  of  age,  or  that  more 
deadly  blight  which  the  world's  harsh  treatment  so  often 
inflicts  upon  hope  and  faith.  He  saw  the  good  ends  his 
evangelists  served,  and  the  restricted  areas  of  his  concluding 
period  only  intensified  its  energies.  Released  from  the 
intrigues  of  political  cabals,  his  desire  to  project  new  activity 
into  the  morals  of  his  age  found  another  outlet  in  the  stream 
of  pamphlets  that  flowed  from  his  pen,  both  in  Latin  and  in 
English.  Two  of  his  larger  works,  the  "Trialogus,"  most 
erudite  of  all  his  productions,  and  the  unfinished  "Opus 
Evangelicum,"  were  also  written  at  this  time.  Nor  did  his 
seclusion  render  him  indifferent  to  those  issues  of  the  State  in 

•  G.  G.  Coulton :    "Chaucer  and  his  England";   p.  307. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  153 

which  he  had  so  recently  been  conspicuous.  When  Henry 
Spencer/  Bishop  of  Norwich,  obtained  a  commission  from 
Pope  Urban  VI  to  lead  a  crusade  against  the  adherents  of  his 
rival  at  Avignon,  Clement  VII,  Wycliffe  published  a  small 
Latin  treatise  entitled  "Cruciata,"  in  which  he  exposed  and 
condemned  Spencer's  proceedings,  probably  the  more  readil}^ 
because  that  bishop  had  become  notorious  for  his  brutal 
treatment  of  the  peasants  during  their  insurgency.  In 
Wycliffe  the  prelate  encountered  an  opponent  not  so  easily 
subdued,  who  characterized  his  action  as  a  prosecution 
unbecoming  true  Christians,  and  an  invasion  of  the  faith. 
Not  content  with  this,  Wycliffe  addressed  a  letter  to  the 
Primate  covering  the  same  grounds.  The  scheme  he  ar- 
raigned failed;  on  Spencer's  return  to  England  the  tem- 
poralities of  his  see  were  withdrawn,  and  he  was  cited 
before  Parliament  to  answer  for  his  conduct.  Courtenay 
had  tightened  the  reins  to  no  purpose  if  he  meant  to  curb 
Wycliffe.  Yet  the  Archbishop  was  reluctant  to  push  matters 
to  extremes,  and  although  this  hesitation  has  been  generally 
credited  to  the  status  of  the  Reformer  as  a  renowned  doctor 
of  Theology,  his  immunity  from  personal  attack  may  have 
been  due  in  some  measure  to  more  generous  motives  on  the 
part  of  Courtenay.  The  evangelists  themselves  received 
no  consideration ;  they  were  harassed  on  every  side,  expelled 
from  the  University,  forced  to  abjure  their  opinions,  and 
to  renounce  their  allegiance  to  the  arch-heretic.  One  after 
another  submitted,  but  a  faithful  group,  chiefly  composed 
of  men  of  humble  position  and  relatively  small  attainments, 
refused  to  recant,  and  displayed  that  fortitude  for  which 
the  English  yeoman  has  been  justly  esteemed. 

Their  leader  was  neither  banned  nor  excommunicated, 
and  the  fable  of  his  recantation  is  too  flimsy  for  serious  dis- 
cussion. He  had  realized  his  freedom,  the  outside  world 
had  lost  its  charms  and  terrors  for  him,  and  he  was  not  re- 

^  Also  known  as  Henry  le  Spencer  or  Despenser ;  born  in  1341  or  1342, 
died  in  1406 ;  a  soldier  rather  than  a  churchman. 


154      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

strained  from  stimulating  to  the  fullest  extent  the  adapta- 
tion of  his  teaching  to  actual  conditions.  In  the  inquiry 
which  Courtenay  had  set  on  foot  no  mention  was  made  of  any 
individual.  The  doctrines  condemned  were  not  attributed 
to  any  particular  party ;  ecclesiastical  discipline  has  seldom, 
if  ever,  been  maintained  with  more  moderation.  On  the 
other  hand  Wycliffe  was  not  so  much  a  Reformer  with  a 
numerous  and  determined  body  of  supporters  as  an  earnest 
seeker  after  truth  who,  although  he  could  no  longer  accept 
things  as  they  were,  had  no  deliberate  system  of  his  own 
to  offer  in  their  stead. 

Thus  in  a  comparatively  peaceful  eventide,  his  hitherto 
unwearied  day  drew  near  its  close.  A  paralytic  seizure  in 
1382  had  warned  him  that  his  incessant  toils  could  not  be 
long  extended ;  still,  except  in  so  far  as  physical  debility 
imposed  restraints  on  him,  he  gave  no  sign  of  relinquishing 
his  duties.  The  consciousness  that  his  race  was  well-nigh 
run  could  not  induce  him  to  retire  from  the  field,  in  which  he 
labored  against  the  friars  and  the  Holy  See  with  unabated 
mental  and  moral  force.  Some  of  his  biographers  assert  that 
the  friars  appealed  to  Rome  in  protest,  and  that  in  1384 
Urban  summoned  Wycliffe  to  appear  before  the  Papal  Court. 
His  reply  to  the  Pontiff,  they  inform  us,  showed  that  the 
emaciated  recluse,  "  spare  and  well-nigh  destitute  of  strength," 
while  mellower  in  tone,  could  still  use  the  speech  of  contro- 
versy with  old-time  skill  and  promptitude  :  "  I  have  joyfully 
to  tell  to  all  men  the  belief  that  I  hold,  and  especially  to  the 
Pope,  for  I  suppose  that  if  my  faith  be  rightful  and  given  of 
God  the  Pope  will  gladly  confirm  it,  and  that  if  my  faith  be 
error,  the  Pope  will  wisely  amend  it.  Above  this  I  suppose 
that  the  Pope  is  most  obliged  to  the  keeping  of  the  Gospel 
among  all  men  that  live  here,  for  the  Pope  is  highest  vicar 
that  Christ  has  here  on  earth.  For  the  moreness  (superiority) 
of  Christ's  vicar  is  not  measured  by  earthly  moreness,  but  by 
this,  that  this  vicar  follows  Christ  more  closely  by  virtuous 
living.     Now  Christ  during  the  time  He  walked  here  was 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  155 

the  poorest  of  men,  and  put  from  Him  all  manner  of  worldly 
lordship.  From  this  I  take  it  as  a  wholesome  counsel  that 
the  Pope  should  abandon  his  worldly  lordship  to  worldly 
lords,  and  move  speedily  all  his  clerks  to  do  the  same.  For 
thus  did  Christ,  and  thus  He  taught  His  disciples,  until  the 
fiend  had  blinded  this  world.  And  if  I  err  in  this  sentence 
(opinion)  I  will  meekly  be  amended,  yea  even  by  death, 
for  that  I  hope  would  be  a  good  to  me." 

This  was  the  last  flash  of  his  expiring  fires ;  a  few  weeks 
later,  "on  the  day  of  the  Holy  Innocents,"  said  John  Horn, 
a  priest  and  an  eyewitness,  "  as  Wycliffe  was  hearing  Mass 
in  his  church  at  Lutterworth,  at  the  time  of  the  elevation  of 
the  Host,  he  fell  down  smitten  by  a  severe  paralysis."  Three 
days  afterward,  on  Saturday,  December  31,  1384,  his  tran- 
scendent spirit,  whose  great  gifts,  activities,  and  aspirations 
commanded  the  admiration  of  friends  and  enemies  alike, 
entered  into  rest  with  the  departing  year.  The  manner  of 
his  decease,  after  all  he  had  said  and  done,  might  well  be 
described  in  the  language  of  Dante's  "Convito"  :  "Natural 
death  is  as  it  were  a  haven  and  a  rest  after  long  navigation. 
And  the  noble  soul  is  like  a  good  mariner;  for  he,  when  he 
draws  near  the  port,  lowers  his  sails  and  enters  it  softly 
with  gentle  steerage.  For  in  such  a  death  there  is  no  grief 
nor  any  bitterness;  but  as  a  ripe  apple  is  lightly  and  with- 
out violence  loosened  from  its  branch,  so  our  soul  without 
grieving  departs  from  the  body  in  which  it  hath  been."  ^ 

Wycliffe  was  buried  at  Lutterworth,  but  by  a  decree  of  the 
Council  of  Constance,  dated  May  4th,  1415,  his  remains  were 
ordered  to  be  exhumed  and  cast  away.  Thirteen  years  later. 
Bishop  Fleming,  the  founder  of  Lincoln  College,  Oxford, 
carried  out  the  order.  When  Charles  V  stood  beside  the 
tomb  of  Luther  at  Wittenberg,  those  about  him  suggested 
that  the  body  of  his  triumphant  enemy  should  be  disinterred 
and  burned  at  the  stake  in  the  market  place.  "I  war  not 
with  the  dead,"  was  the  Emperor's  reply,  a  chivalrous  word 

•  Dr.  Carlyle's  translation. 


156      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

which  stands  in  contrast  to  the  malevolent  uselessness  of 
Fleming's  deed. 

In  any  attempt  to  present  a  unified  view  of  Wycliffe's 
character  and  service  as  the  first  English  prophet  who  smote 
the  rock  of  medieval  ecclesiasticism,  first  place  should  be 
given  to  that  spiritual  insight  which  outlasts  the  transient 
value  of  his  intellectual  efforts.  The  forms  of  his  thought 
have  perished  with  the  age  that  gave  them  meaning,  but  the 
spell  of  his  soul's  presence  is  with  us  still.  "Feeble  unit  in 
a  threatening  infinitude"  though  he  was,  his  reliance  was 
upon  Christ,  Whom  he  set  forth  under  terms  of  high  political 
phraseology,  as  the  supreme  Head  of  the  race,  the  "Csesar 
semper  Augustus,"  the  Saviour  of  the  whole  number  of 
the  elect.  Yet  the  esoteric  strain  was  seldom  apparent  in 
Wycliffe ;  he  expressed  little  of  that  poignant  sense  of  individ- 
ual transgression  which  is  the  plaint  of  such  men  as  St.  Paul, 
St.  Augustine,  and  St.  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  nor  does  a 
rapt  communion  with  God  seem  to  have  been  vouchsafed 
to  his  religious  experience.  His  intellectual  habits  to  a 
large  extent  controlled  his  devotional  attitude.  He  closely 
identified  knowing  with  being,  and  the  legalistic  rather  than 
the  strictly  evangelical  appropriation  of  divine  grace  found 
favor  in  his  sight.  This  was  expressed  in  his  article  that 
"working  by  a  right  life  ended  after  God's  will  maketh  a 
man  God's  child,"  a  statement  which,  however  true  in  itself, 
stood  unrelated  to  the  doctrine  of  Justification  by  Faith. 
Indeed,  despite  Wycliffe's  familiarity  with  the  New  Testa- 
ment, he  did  not  give  that  emphasis  to  St.  Paul's  teaching 
which  was  the  mainspring  of  the  sixteenth  century  Refor- 
mation. Notwithstanding  his  incessant  appeal  to  reason, 
his  words  are  suffused  with  a  direct  earnestness,  a  passion 
for  truth,  and  an  unaffected  sincerity  which  lift  them  above 
the  chilling  mists  of  mere  abstraction.  Moreover,  the  opera- 
tions of  Puritan  theocracy  were  foreshadowed  in  his  religious 
development.  If  reason  and  the  exposition  of  holy  doctors 
approved  by  the  Church  were  his  earlier  guides  in  the  inter- 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  157 

pretation  of  the  Scriptures,  in  his  later  writings  he  insisted 
that  the  Spirit  of  God  alone  could  expound  the  Bible  to  the 
individual  Christian,  He  only  can  hope  to  understand  aright 
who  seeks  the  truth  therein  contained  in  holiness  of  heart 
and  humility  of  mind.  "He  that  keepeth  meekness  and 
charity  hath  the  true  understanding  and  perfection  of  all 
Holy  Writ,"  for  "  Christ  did  not  write  His  laws  on  tables, 
or  on  skins  of  animals,  but  in  the  hearts  of  men!"  "The 
Holy  Ghost,"  he  adds,  "teaches  us  the  meaning  of  Scripture 
as  Christ  opened  its  sense  to  His  Apostles." 

Milton  praised  Wycliffe  in  the  " Areopagitica "  as  a  "di- 
vine and  admirable  spirit,"  and,  if  his  rectitude  and  in- 
tegrity, his  enthusiasm  for  the  cause  of  religion  and  his 
ardent  longing  for  the  purification  of  the  Church  are  recalled, 
it  cannot  be  gainsaid  that  the  austere  poet's  eulogium  was 
on  the  whole  deserved.  Some  of  his  theological  convic- 
tions have  sunk  to  the  level  of  curiosities,  and  men  have 
turned  away  from  others  because  they  have  ceased  to  retain 
any  interest.  The  rest  were  held  by  him  in  an  intelligent 
and  a  spacious  way,  and  were  full  of  enlightenment  and  hope. 
His  theory  of  the  lordship  of  God  was  more  than  an  indefi- 
nite aspiration  or  a  supreme  feeling  for  the  loftiest  object 
of  human  contemplation.  He  was  not  content  with  the  idea 
of  a  Deity  Who  was  the  mere  creation  of  metaphysics,  and 
whose  attributes  were  so  arbitrarily  expressed  as  to  baffle 
those  who  sought  His  aid.  By  deriving  human  from  divine 
lordship,  and  by  making  the  former  dependent  on  character 
and  service,  Wycliffe  but  employed  feudal  language  to 
sweeten  the  lives  of  suffering  multitudes  and  lift  from  their 
shoulders  the  burdens  that  bowed  them  down.  The  didactic 
phraseology  of  his  constructive  thinking  was  seldom  without 
an  application  to  the  problems  of  actual  life. 

His  granitic  character  was  unmantled  by  superficial  ten- 
derness, and  as  a  celibate  he  could  not  enjoy  the  domestic 
intercourse  which  contributed  to  Luther's  humanness  and 
popularity.     Yet  his  temperament,  though  naturally  inclined 


158      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

to  forcible  action,  never  knew  those  revulsions  of  sentiment 
which  frequently  accompany  such  a  disposition.  He  was 
in  a  great  ethical  sense  a  lover  of  God,  of  goodness,  and  of 
his  fellow  creatures;  especially  such  as  were  deserted  and 
forlorn ;  victimized  by  the  outrageous  evils  which  a  merciless 
caste  system  inflicted  on  the  poor.  These  he  cared  for  as 
though  they  were  his  own,  and  the  more  persistently  because 
of  their  wretchedness.  For  love  is  not  only  the  impulse  of 
natural  affection,  it  is  also  that  moralized  devotion  which 
seeks  the  highest  welfare  of  its  object.  This  passion  pre- 
vailed in  Wycliffe ;  it  made  him  solicitous  for  the  nation,  the 
Church,  the  Bible,  and  for  those  helpless  members  of  the 
State  who  could  not  ward  off  hunger,  cold,  and  misery. 
"Poor  men,"  he  cried,  "have  naked  sides  and  dead  walls 
have  plenty  of  waste  gold."  The  recurrence  of  such  abject 
conditions  has  brought  back  these  and  similar  phrases  into 
modern  speech.  They  have  not  yet  escaped  the  stir  made 
five  hundred  years  ago  by  his  opinions,  opinions  which,  while 
somewhat  inchoate,  nevertheless  had  a  real  influence  for  their 
own  age,  as  the  Peasants'  Revolt  sufficiently  attests. 

Even  friendly  observers  have  complained  of  his  constant 
invective  against  the  established  order,  and  certainly  he 
indulged  an  unseasonable  readiness  for  scathing  rebuke. 
Believing,  because  of  his  sensitiveness  to  more  commanding 
interests,  that  property  was  the  capital  offender  against  the 
common  weal,  he  scorned  its  inheritors,  and  propounded 
impossible  schemes  for  their  elimination  from  the  social 
organism.  His  hate  of  greed  and  of  the  despotisms  which  it 
dictated  was  the  militant  aspect  of  his  ecclesiastical  and 
political  righteousness.  Yet  these  explanations  do  not  justify 
his  language  in  controversy,  which  was  harsh,  imperious,  and 
vituperative.  His  opponents  returned  it  in  good  measure 
after  the  fashion  of  the  era.  Dignitaries  of  the  Church  and 
of  the  University  were  prone  to  scurrilous  abuse  as  well  as 
stiff  argumentation,  and  were  seemingly  oblivious  of  the 
fact  that  such  methods  lowered  the  merit  of  their  debate.     A 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  159 

witty  Frenchman  satirized  Geoffrey's  vitriolic  criticisms  by 
announcing  that  he  died  as  the  result  of  having  inadvertently 
tasted  the  tip  of  his  own  pen.  But  Geoffrey  was  mild  and 
soporific  when  compared  with  the  fourteenth  century  doctors 
and  disputants,  whose  picturesquely  blasphemous  epithets 
need  not  be  recounted  here.  Courtesy  and  fairness  were 
then  unknown,  and  his  admirers  cannot  claim  that  Wycliffe 
did  aught  to  discover  them. 

But  the  principles  of  tolerance  were  known ;  and  the  men 
of  that  age  never  thought  of  persecution  as  right;  they 
used  it  as  a  necessary  instrument  in  the  maintenance  of  the 
churchly  organization  as  a  vital  factor  of  the  State.  Even  so 
enlightened  a  scholar  as  Gerson  entirely  declined  to  recognize, 
except  for  his  own  purposes,  his  avowed  principle  of  the  non- 
coercion  of  opinions,  and  when  Hus  applied  it  to  the  revival 
of  spiritual  religion  it  at  once  became  heretical.^  Wycliffe 
did  not  suggest  physical  violence  against  his  adversaries,  but 
he  did  recommend  that  they  should  be  stripped  of  their 
honors  and  emoluments.  He  might  have  said  in  the  words 
of  Goethe,  "I  can  promise  to  be  sincere  but  not  impar- 
tial," and  his  unlicensed  speech  injured  his  cause  and  ex- 
posed him  to  the  just  accusations  of  his  enemies.  On  the 
other  hand,  a  judicial  attitude  was  scarcely  possible  in  con- 
tentious matters  which  went  to  the  root  of  a  semi-civilized 
life.  Both  he  and  his  adversaries  struck  for  a  definite  object, 
and  received  hard  blows  in  return.  Moreover,  the  clergy 
upon  whom  he  poured  out  his  anger  were  not  forgiven  by 
following  generations.  A  century  and  a  half  later  the  laity 
of  many  countries  revolted  against  them,  and  to-day  no 
progressive  people  would  tolerate  them  for  a  moment. 

All  conquests  are,  more  or  less,  the  prize  of  courage,  and  it 
is  essential  for  the  forward  march  of  the  race  that  deeds  of 
daring  should  grapple  boldly  with  fate.  In  this  respect 
Wycliffe  has  received  no  blame  and  requires  no  defense.  He 
had  other  characteristics;  moral  earnestness,  a  horror  of 
1  Bishop  Mandell  Creighton :  "  Persecution  and  Tolerance  "  ;  pp.  100-101. 


160      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

hypocrisy,  honesty  that  did  not  shrink  from  the  confession 
of  failure,  and  the  temper  which  brought  opinions  to  the  test 
of  practice;  quaUties  expressed  in  an  undaunted  bearing 
which  never  flinched,  and  made  him  the  foremost  citizen  of 
England  while  he  was  a  simple  clerk  at  Lutterworth.  To 
attempt,  to  persist,  to  affront  unjust  power,  and  to  stand  in 
his  own  place  faithful  to  what  he  believed,  was  habitual  with 
him,  and  constituted  him  an  example  of  genuine  greatness. 
He  was  further  distinguished  for  an  indomitable  will,  which 
harmonized  his  strong  and  varied  gifts  and  directed  them 
upon  specific  lines  of  action.  Amid  the  mire  and  malignancy 
of  his  environment,  he  pushed  onward  and  cleared  the 
path  for  those  who  had  less  initiative.  His  contempo- 
raries were  aware  of  this  determination,  and  his  ablest 
opponent.  Archbishop  Courtenay,  was  wary  in  his  dealings 
with  one  whom  he  knew  to  be  as  immovable  as  himself. 
If  there  was  in  Wycliffe  any  reluctance  to  face  obnoxious 
circumstances,  he  seldom  permitted  it  to  appear.  Indeed, 
he  preferred  those  dangerous  pursuits  from  which  prudence 
would  have  retreated,  and  the  greater  the  risk,  the  more 
ready  seemed  his  undertaking.  This  hardihood  was  not 
stimulated  by  any  optimistic  outlook ;  few  clear-eyed  men 
were  optimists  after  the  Black  Death  and  its  consequences. 
Langland  asserted  that  "the  last  stronghold  of  Christianity 
had  already  succumbed  to  the  assaults  of  Antichrist  and 
the  teachings  of  the  friars.  Henceforth  his  pattern  of 
simple  faith.  Piers  Plowman,  must  shake  the  dust  of  the 
past  from  his  feet  and  wander  forth  alone  in  search  of  the 
Christ  that  is  to  be."  ^  Even  Chaucer,  who  stood  alone  in 
his  inexplicable  buoyancy,  struck  a  less  cheerful  note  in  his 
latest  song.  Wycliffe  anticipated  Langland,  and  declared 
that  the  Church  would  never  be  reformed  except  by  the 
conjunction  of  an  irresistible  movement  from  within  and  a 
heroical  pressure  from  without.  Half  the  truth  of  this  asser- 
tion was  preceptible  to  his  vision,  but  the  remainder  was  not. 

*  G.  G.  Coulton :   "From  St.  Francis  to  Dante"  ;   p.  350. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  161 

He  saw  that  men  had  begun  to  pass  their  accustomed  bound- 
aries and  to  find  other  fears  and  hopes  far  exceeding  the  griefs 
and  joys  they  knew.  But  he  did  not  foresee  their  expansion 
into  a  freedom  which  could  dispense  with  narrow  creeds  and 
scholastic  interpretations,  nor  rise  to  an  apprehension  of  that 
search  for  good  before  which  such  formularies  fade  away. 
Yet  dejection  never  impeded  his  efforts,  and,  so  far  as  the 
immediate  future  was  concerned,  his  wisdom  was  justified 
by  his  accurate  prediction  of  the  troubles  which  fell  upon 
Christendom. 

Material  for  volumes  of  disquisitions  upon  justice  and 
righteousness,  or  upon  ecclesiastical  and  political  plots  and 
counter-plots,  can  easily  be  obtained  from  a  study  of  his 
writings.  Their  treatment  of  these  issues  is  far  more  akin 
to  the  problems  of  our  generation  than  are  his  acquire- 
ments in  the  Scholasticism  he  expounded,  and  from  which 
he  could  never  separate  his  modes  of  thought.  But  though 
he  was  not  the  intellectual  equal  of  the  greater  Schoolmen, 
and  it  is  vain  to  compare  him  with  the  premier  thinkers 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  nevertheless,  in  the  opinion  of  those 
best  qualified  to  judge  he  was  chiefly  important  because  of 
the  weight  and  extent  of  his  learning.  He  soared  far  above 
others  in  the  range  of  his  genius  and  surpassed  them  in  the 
profundity  of  his  knowledge.  SuflScient  evidence  to  confirm 
this  has  already  been  quoted  from  his  contemporaries, 
who  were  agreed  that  in  philosophy,  theology,  and  famil- 
iarity with  the  Scriptures  he  had  no  living  equal.  Scho- 
lasticism was  in  its  recession  when  he  arrived  upon  the 
scene;  yet  Wycliffe's  assiduity  so  redeemed  what  oppor- 
tunities were  left  as  to  secure  him  this  eminence.  The 
limitations  of  the  metaphysic  in  which  he  wrought  were 
shown  in  the  fact  that  men  argued  first  and  thought  after- 
wards. His  formal  treatment  of  certain  themes  moved  in  a 
circle,  and  it  was  only  when  he  reached  the  question  he 
desired  to  prove  that  he  displayed  an  intellectual  vigor  and 
ease  which  the  clumsiness  of  his  methods  could  no  longer 


162      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

conceal.  Here  the  keenness  of  his  mind  and  his  strategical 
handling  of  arguments  for  attack  or  defense,  while  derived 
from  the  discipline  of  the  Schools,  went  far  beyond  them, 
and  transferred  him  into  the  region  of  the  reformer. 

Passing  from  his  intellectual  qualities  to  his  services  as  a 
Christian  patriot,  it  is  relevant  to  say  that  his  differentiat- 
ing principle  was  the  dependence  of  the  individual  soul  upon 
God  alone.  This  doctrine,  which  assigned  to  every  single 
person  an  equal  place  in  the  regard  of  Deity,  contained  the 
seed  of  destruction  for  the  carefully  graded  hierarchies  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  It  sounds  trite  to  our  ears  since  custom 
has  deprived  it  of  freshness  and  force.  But  the  prelates  who 
resisted  it  did  so  because  they  recognized  in  its  implications 
the  handwriting  on  the  walls  of  their  lordly  houses.  Wycliffe 
transferred  the  conception  from  religion  to  politics,  and  the 
result  was  that  he  fell  into  those  paradoxes  which  perplexed 
his  friends  and  assisted  his  foes.  Yet  even  here  the  for- 
mula has  still  to  be  reckoned  with ;  for,  though  it  is  not  the 
final  expression  of  the  truth,  it  must  be  held  as  a  depository  of 
what  truth  it  contained,  that  this  may  be  used  as  a  means  for 
new  light  upon  the  relations  of  character  to  material  posses- 
sions. 

Wycliffe's  thunderings  against  medieval  authority  should 
be  estimated  in  the  light  of  the  fact  that  rulers  were  unaware 
of  the  distinction  between  civil  and  religious  liberty  as  a 
principle  and  as  an  actual  achievement.  The  fact,  if  not  the 
theory,  they  were  compelled  to  accept  at  spasmodic  intervals 
as  an  unwelcome  intruder  into  a  well-ordered  condition. 
Kings  and  popes  granted  it,  but  in  reality  it  was  the  force  of 
circumstances  which  gave  it,  and  what  were  deemed  conces- 
sions from  above  were  really  conquests  from  below.  The 
government  of  Christian  States  rested  on  an  absolutism  which 
flatly  contradicted  the  democracy  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  Wycliffe  was  too  close  a  Biblical  student  not  to  know 
its  plain  teachings.  Codes,  statutes,  franchises,  charters, 
dispensations,  and  similar  instruments  were  frequently  ex- 


JOHN    WYCLIFFE  163 

torted  by  force,  or  procured  by  money  payments  to  needy 
exchequers.  Occasionally  they  were  regarded  as  fragments 
of  a  larger  freedom  not  yet  evolved  out  of  the  surrounding 
confusion,  but  never  acknowledged  by  the  governing  powers 
as  a  fundamental  social  necessity.  Wycliffe  was  shrewd 
enough  to  detect  this  temper  in  the  princes,  bishops,  and 
nobles,  and  if  he  did  not  perceive  it  with  the  lucidity  of 
Marsiglio,  yet  his  speculations  were  sufficiently  incisive  to 
disturb  those  who  regarded  his  theory  of  lordship  as  a  fore- 
runner of  anarchy  and  madness.  Further,  these  views,  how- 
ever visionary,  were  the  stimulus  for  those  active  mental 
and  moral  processes  by  which  he  sought  to  attain  beneficial 
results,  and  which  saved  him  from  ending  in  a  morass  of 
impossibilities.  He  called  upon  the  students  of  Oxford  to 
renounce  the  grandiose  puerilities  of  a  barren  curriculum 
and  occupy  themselves  with  solid  and  useful  verities.  The 
exhortation  was  enforced  by  his  own  researches  beyond 
lordship  in  the  State  into  the  baseless  assumptions  of  a 
sacerdotal  hierarchy,  whose  pretensions  he  met,  as  we  have 
said,  with  his  exposition  of  the  theory  of  the  immediate 
dependence  of  the  individual  soul  upon  God  ;  a  relation  which 
needed  no  priestly  mediation  and  to  which  the  Sacraments  of 
the  Church,  however  desirable  and  edifying,  were  not  abso- 
lutely necessary.^  But  powerful  minds  are  not  always  safe 
minds,  and  when  he  divorced  the  idea  of  the  Church  from  any 
connection  with  its  official  or  formal  constitution,  he  advo- 
cated an  impossible  radicalism  which  verified  his  description 
of  himself  as  one  who  "stammered  out  many  things  he  was 
unable  clearly  to  make  good." 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  the  typical  religion 
which  rises  above  changes  of  earth,  above  schools  of  the- 
ology, above  conflicting  doctrines ;  the  religion  which  is 
created  by  a  man's  realization  that  as  man  he  must  stand 
face  to  face  with  the  Supreme  Being,  and  that  God  has 
given  him  his  manhood    for   this  specific  purpose,  —  was 

>  Encyclopaedia  Britannica:    11th  edition:    article  on  Wycliffe. 


164      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

Wycliffe's,  his  unfailing  source  of  confidence  and  of  hope. 
His  virtues  stood  high  in  the  ethical  scale,  and  the  motives 
which  inspired  his  conduct  were,  as  a  rule,  unmixed.  The 
gross  and  open  immorality  then  prevalent  did  not  touch 
him,  even  by  rumor,  to  sully  his  priesthood,  and  apart  from 
politics,  no  compromise  with  wrong  has  been  laid  to  his 
charge.  Among  his  contemporaries  his  influence  corre- 
sponded with  the  elevation  of  his  character  and  the  large- 
ness of  his  mind.  Yet  he  could  not  persuade  a  comparatively 
primitive  society  whose  spiritualities  had  been  nourished  by 
that  marvel  of  construction,  the  dogma,  ritual,  and  liturgy 
of  Roman  Christianity  in  the  Middle  Ages,  to  turn  at  once 
to  his  purer  and  more  exacting  creed. 

But  the  irresistible  forces  of  Time  were  enlisted  in  behalf  of 
his  teaching,  while  the  convictions  of  his  countrymen  have 
moved  toward  its  more  refined  articles  and  away  from  dwarfed 
finalities  whose  leaden,  motionless  infallibility  arrests  change 
by  destroying  life.  He  was  brought  into  contact  with  issues 
which  could  not  be  discussed  without  differences  nor  settled 
without  leaving  in  the  conclusions  the  leaven  of  some  error. 
The  difficult  role  of  the  cleric  in  politics  was  not  undertaken 
without  risk  to  his  reputation,  but  here  the  sturdiness  which 
was  inimical  to  his  statesmanship  served  him  well,  in  that  it 
prevented  him  from  making  final  shipwreck  of  his  honor. 
Venomous  misrepresentation  was  heaped  upon  his  public 
acts;  he  was  in  no  way  idealized  by  what  was  said  about 
him  after  he  was  gone.  His  memory  was  either  left  to 
the  mercies  of  a  rabid  ecclesiasticism,  jealous  for  its  corpo- 
rate powers  and  privileges,  or  connected  with  a  despised 
and  obscure  group  of  sectaries  which  dwindled  to  extinction 
under  persecution  and  its  own  fanaticisms.  In  his  earlier 
days  a  pluralist,  a  beneficiary  of  the  Crown,  and  an  associ- 
ate of  the  Lancastrian  party,  in  his  later  years  he  spurned 
higher  rewards  within  the  compass  of  his  talents  because 
their  acceptance  would  have  involved  a  sacrifice  of  principle. 
Thus  the  gulf  between  preferment  and  his  own  self-respect 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  165 

had  widened,  nor  would  he  bridge  it  by  betrayal.  He 
supported  the  peasants  in  their  revolt  against  the  festering 
abuses  and  iniquities  of  their  rulers,  and  the  deprivations 
which  ensued  redounded  to  his  credit  and  usefulness. 

The  approval  of  the  inward  monitor,  the  translation  of  the 
Bible  which  he  loved  and  venerated,  the  ministrations  of  his 
parish  and  the  direction  of  his  poor  priests  afforded  him  en- 
joyments beyond  those  he  had  forfeited.  Besides,  Wycliffe 
was  built  for  battle,  and  for  him  to  renounce  patronage  was 
less  difficult  than  to  abstain  from  onslaughts  upon  sordid 
wrongs.  If  we  are  safe  in  believing  the  evil  which  men  assert, 
not  of  their  antagonists,  but  of  their  companions,  then  cleri- 
cal avarice,  luxury,  simony,  and  similar  works  of  darkness 
abounded  in  high  places  and  under  the  disguise  of  spiritual 
authority.  Against  these,  the  wearisome  reiteration  of  which 
would  fall  short  of  their  actual  extent,  he  waged  a  good 
warfare,  and  in  adversity  he  kept  a  high  mien  which  discon- 
certed his  adversaries.  The  reaction  against  the  Papacy, 
which  began  in  the  reign  of  Henry  HI,  reached  its  high-water 
mark  in  John  Wycliffe,  and,  though  a  subsidence  followed, 
it  increased  the  independence  of  the  nation  and  created 
precedents  for  a  larger  freedom.  His  final  months  of 
earthly  life  ran  their  course  unvexed ;  a  certain  grandeur 
overspread  the  man,  who  seemed  to  gather  to  himself  in  that 
sunset  calm  those  loftier  hopes  and  fulfilments  which  have 
made  his  memory  the  treasured  heritage  of  a  nation  excep- 
tionally rich  in  such  bequests.  His  dust  escaped  the  hate  of 
ignominious  reactionaries  and  has  the  world  for  its  tomb, 
though  he  needed  neither  tomb  nor  epitaph  to  guard  a  name 
than  which  no  braver  glows  in  the  golden  roll  of  English 
sires. 

Epilogue 

Those  who  approach  the  study  of  the  later  medieval  period 
in  England  through  the  poetry  of  Chaucer  or  the  glories  of 
Gothic  architecture  may  find  it  difficult  to  reconcile  the  joy- 


166      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

ous  and  sublime  triumph  of  these  master  works  with  the 
physical  and  moral  wretchedness  of  the  populace  we  have 
depicted.  The  fourteenth  century  Church  which  Wycliffe 
pronounced  abandoned  and  degenerate  could  still  erect  those 
exquisite  cathedrals  and  abbeys  which  are  to-day  the  monu- 
ments of  her  religious  culture.  If  anywhere  there  were 
sermons  in  stones,  capturing  the  imagination  to  an  extent 
that  can  be  claimed  by  few  buildings  in  the  world,  they 
were  found  in  Gloucester's  reconstructed  pile,  in  Abbot 
Litlington's  additions  at  Westminster,  and  in  the  trans- 
formation of  the  great  Hall  of  Rufus  by  Richard  II.  But  the 
marks  of  decadence  were  on  them,  and,  though  its  progress 
was  slow,  the  change  which  reduced  the  free  and  flowing  lines 
of  the  earlier  Gothic  to  the  stiff  utilitarianism  of  the  later 
style  was  already  in  process  and  continued  during  the  life- 
time of  Wycliffe.  Nor  did  their  fascinations  satisfy  men's 
cravings  for  a  more  spiritual  setting  of  the  Christian  faith 
than  "  long  drawn  aisles  and  fretted  vaults  "  supply.  Seekers 
after  God  turned  from  their  cloying  beauties  and  from  the 
elaborate  rituals  they  housed,  as  they  had  turned  from  the 
subtleties  of  academic  argument.  Wycliffe,  although  given 
to  a  proper  ceremonialism,  showed  scanty  appreciation  for 
these  holy  fanes.  They  were  memorable  achievements,  but 
the  world  could  not  live  by  them.  Sculptures,  however 
skillfully  wrought,  were  not  the  bread  of  Heaven ;  not  the 
realities  upon  which  piety  must  feed  to  live.  Intonings  and 
chantings  had  not  increased  the  morality  of  the  worshipers. 
Their  constant  repetition  dulled  the  hearing  of  the  heart,  and 
sacred  offices  hardened  upon  the  accustomed  mind  like  a 
shell.  He  quoted  St.  Augustine's  dictum  —  "  As  often  as 
the  song  delighteth  me  more  than  that  is  songen,  so  oft  do 
I  acknowledge  that  I  trespass  grievously"  —  against  the 
endless  array  of  vested  priests  and  choristers  who  enlisted 
the  senses  at  the  cost  of  the  spirit. 

But  although   he  was  the  chief  contemporary  Englishman 
who  berated  such  cherished  ways  of  worship,  and  also  op- 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  167 

posed  the  hierarchical  control  of  the  State,  he  did  so  without 
rightly  estimating  their  latent  usefulness,  and  his  proposals 
for  their  abolition  failed  because  they  were  premature  in 
origin  and  negative  in  character.  It  has  been  pertinently 
observed  that  it  was  the  misfortune  of  his  position  to 
have  to  attack  abuses  at  a  time  when  their  abolition  was 
but  too  likely  to  be  followed  by  worse  abuses,  and  to  de- 
fend the  rights  of  the  State  at  a  time  when  its  rights  were 
likely  to  be  asserted  in  practice  for  the  satisfaction  of  a 
clique  of  nobles  more  greedy,  more  unscrupulous,  and  more 
incompetent  than  the  respectable  ecclesiastical  statesmen 
in  whom  Wycliffe  saw  no  good  thing.  The  governing  classes 
were  aware  that  the  modifications  and  balances  afterwards 
introduced  to  adjust  the  relations  of  Church  and  State  had 
as  yet  found  no  place  in  English  law.  Nor  could  the  towns 
and  cities,  those  repositories  of  a  larger  freedom,  advance  the 
Reformer's  schemes,  since  they  were  fully  occupied  in  pro- 
tecting their  civic  interests.  The  peasants  and  artisans  to 
whom  he  appealed  in  his  extremity  were  deprived  of  any 
means  for  an  effective  response.  Hence  he  attempted  to 
pluck  the  fruit  before  it  was  ripe;  the  experiments  in  de- 
mocracy which  he  advocated,  if  they  had  been  carried  out, 
would  have  turned  back  by  centuries  the  hands  of  the  clock. 
He  saw  the  needs  of  the  present,  and  to  some  extent  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  future,  but  he  did  not  sufficiently  esteem  the 
spirit  of  the  past  from  which  they  could  not  be  separated  if 
they  were  to  be  satisfied.  Constructive  policies  were  abso- 
lutely essential  in  dealing  with  the  great  fabric  which  previ- 
ous ages  had  reared  with  untold  pains  and  sacrifices.  These 
policies  were  not  forthcoming,  and  the  Reformer  mediated 
between  the  methods  he  condemned  and  those  he  could  not 
fully  formulate.  Thinker  though  he  was,  his  first  principles 
were  sometimes  far  from  cohesive ;  on  specific  questions  his 
was  too  often  the  logic  that  flourished  in  seclusion  but  withered 
in  the  open.  It  should  be  added  that  he  indulged  no  roseate 
dreams  about  victory ;   on  the  contrary,  he  never  concealed 


168      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

from  himself  nor  from  others  the  foreboding  that  their  joint 
efforts  would  be  defeated  and  driven  back.  His  strength 
was  found  in  the  faith  he  had  in  truth  and  righteousness. 
And  in  this  temper,  more  manly  and  deserving  than  the 
artificial  courage  which  is  kindled  by  success,  he  bore  a  brave 
front  and  wrought  valiantly. 

Some  of  his  former  companions  in  tribulation  were  after- 
ward tormentors  of  the  Lollards  who  inherited  his  teaching ; 
one  of  these  backsliders,  Philip  Repyngdon,  became  Bishop 
of  Lincoln  and  a  Cardinal  of  the  Church.  This  prelate  hu- 
manely refused  to  obey  the  official  order  from  the  Council  of 
Constance  commanding  that  the  bones  of  his  old  master  be 
exhumed  and  burned.  Nicholas  Hereford  also  recanted  his 
Wycliffian  opinions,  and,  last  and  most  melancholy,  John 
Purvey,  who  had  been  so  closely  identified  with  the  Reformer's 
dearest  hopes  and  labors,  and  to  whose  gifts  was  due  the 
revision  of  the  first  version  of  the  Wy cliff e  Bible,  revealed 
the  untrustworthiness  of  scholastic  LoUardism  by  his  abjura- 
tion of  the  cause  in  which  he  had  been  a  leader.  He  after- 
wards repented  of  his  cowardice,  recalled  his  recreancy, 
and  disappeared  from  view.  William  Thorpe,  a  more  honor- 
able man,  kept  the  faith,  enduring  imprisonment  in  1397  and 
again  in  1407,  and  on  being  brought  before  Archbishop 
Arundel,  gave  the  Primate  a  moving  account  of  his  own  life, 
and  witnessed  that  historic  confession  for  Wycliffe  from  which 
we  have  already  quoted.  But  the  Lollards  gradually  perished, 
the  University  relinquished  its  hard-won  rights  and  returned 
to  the  bosom  of  the  Church,  and  during  the  perjured  and 
disgraceful  reign  of  Henry  IV  the  heads  of  colleges  became  the 
persecuting  agents  of  the  bishops.  Shakespeare  made  that 
unhappy  monarch,  the  son  of  John  of  Gaunt,  denounce  his 
own  career,  when  he  cried  out  that  God  knew  by  what 
crooked  means  he  had  obtained  the  crown,  and  continued, 
"I  myself  know  well  how  troublesome  it  sat  upon  my  head." 
He  rests  beneath  the  infamy  of  being  the  first  English  king 
who  burned  his  subjects  in  the  name  of  religion.     This  policy 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  169 

could  not  endure,  and  after  an  interval  the  persecutions  of  his 
successor,  Harry  of  Agincourt,  and  of  Archbishop  Arundel, 
were  quietly  abandoned,  although  such  was  not  the  case  until 
Wycliffe's  mission  was  apparently  obliterated  in  England. 

But  if  his  opinions  were  subdued  in  his  native  land,  they 
rose  again  in  Bohemia,  and  the  account  of  their  revival  in 
southeastern  Europe  is  among  the  dramatic  phases  of  Prot- 
estant history.  John  Hus  and  Jerome  of  Prague  continued 
there  the  enterprise  Wycliffe  had  begun  at  Oxford  and  Lutter- 
worth. Hus  obtained  his  forerunner's  manuscript  works 
through  scholars  who  came  to  England  with  Queen  Anne 
of  Bohemia,  the  consort  of  Richard  H,  and,  while  this  in- 
fluential disciple  did  not  accept  all  his  master's  teachings, 
he  raised  their  essentials  to  the  dignity  of  a  national  faith. 
His  tracts,  pamphlets  and  books  were  copied  ipsissima  verba 
from  Wycliffe's  works  and  freely  circulated  among  the  people 
of  that  distant  land.  An  Englishman  who  heard  the  exami- 
nation of  Hus  before  the  Council  of  Constance,  which  con- 
demned and  burned  him,  declared  that  he  thought  he  saw 
standing  before  him  "the  very  Wycliffe."  It  required  little 
stretch  of  imagination  to  see,  looming  in  the  background,  the 
majestic  shade  of  that  great  Englishman  "  for  whose  doctrine 
Hus  went  to  the  stake."  Their  memories,  with  Luther's, 
are  enshrined  in  three  medallions  at  the  University  of  Prague, 
which  depict  the  evolution  of  Protestantism  for  a  century  and 
a  half,  from  the  Anglican  Scholastic  through  the  Bohe- 
mian martyr  to  the  German  Titan.  The  first  shows  Wycliffe 
striking  gleaming  sparks  from  a  flint;  the  second,  Hus 
kindling  the  coals  with  the  sparks ;  the  third,  Luther  bearing 
a  blazing  torch  he  has  lit  at  their  fires. 


Throughout  this  review  we  have  seen  that  belief  in 
liberty  as  an  essential  part  of  the  good  of  all  things,  and 
dread  of  liberty  as  a  dangerous  innovation,  were  then,  as 
they  are  now,  the  polar  instincts  meeting  there,  as  every- 


170      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

where,  in  ceaseless  antagonism.  The  rulers  of  the  period 
were  intent  on  securing  its  aims  and  ideals  in  their  own  way, 
by  the  consolidation  of  Church  and  State,  and  the  preserva- 
tion of  that  loyalty  to  both  upon  which,  as  they  held,  all 
welfare  here  and  hereafter  alike  depended.  "Obedience  is 
the  first  lesson  in  social  progress,  and  this  lesson  was  well 
worth  learning,  even  though  it  took  centuries  to  make  it 
an  instinctive  motor  reaction.  By  the  steady  pressure  i)f 
authority  the  Church  was  modifying  the  very  brain  tissue  of 
the  Christian  world,  and  inculcating  habits  of  thought  which 
lie  at  the  basis  of  social  progress.  The  Church  may  perish, 
but  the  psychic  qualities  it  created  will  endure  as  long  as 
European  civilization."  ^ 

The  time  came  when  self-knowledge  and  self-control  were 
sufficiently  developed  to  attack  with  success  the  evUs 
Wycliffe  deplored,  and  the  failure  of  the  Roman  Church  to 
withstand  the  onset  must  be  sought  in  the  domain  of  morals 
as  well  as  that  of  religion.  Protestantism  consecrated  the 
home  life  of  the  people,  enforced  the  Ten  Commandments, 
put  the  ban  upon  lawless  communal  pleasures,  and  reminded 
men  and  women  that  they  could  attain  sainthood  by  living 
in  the  world  rather  than  fleeing  from  it.  The  mention  of  these 
things  does  not  detract  from  the  inestimable  worth  and 
spiritual  character  of  other  and  more  familiar  causes  that 
also  contributed  to  the  same  result,  but  they  are  emphasized 
for  the  reason  that  they  have  not  always  received  adequate 
consideration.  The  German  Reformation  was  the  outcome 
of  an  ethical  quite  as  much  as  of  a  theological  revolt.  When 
its  day  dawned  and  the  shadows  fled,  men  saw  with  astonish- 
ment that  throughout  the  long  night  preceding  a  few  faithful 
souls  had  kept  their  vigil,  and  that  the  succession  of  the  truly 
apostolic  order  had  never  been  entirely  broken.  In  that  suc- 
cession, always  supreme  because  nearest  to  God's  right  hand, 
John  Wycliffe  stood  first  and  greatest,  as  its  noblest  and  most 
serviceable  member  during  the  later  medieval  period. 

»  S.  N.  Patten:    "Development  of  English  Thought"  ;   pp.  89-90. 


JOHN   WYCLIFFE  171 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

For  a  scholarly  and  authoritative  study  of  Wycliffe  and  his  times 
the  student  is  strongly  recommended  to  consult  "The  Dawn  of  the 
Reformation,"  by  Herbert  B.  Workman,  M.A.,  D.  Lit.,  of  Westminster 
College,  London. 

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Acton,  Lord.     Historical  Essays  and  Studies. 

Acton,  Lord.     Lectures  on  Modern  History. 

Armitage-Smith,  Sydney.     John  of  Gaunt. 

BoASE,  Charles  W.     Oxford  (Historic  Towns  Series). 

Brodrick,  Hon.  George  C.     A  History  of  the  University  of  Oxford. 

Capes,  W.  W.     The  English  Church  in  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth 

Centuries. 
Carrick,  J.  C.     Wycliffe  and  the  Lollards. 
Coulton,  G.  G.     Chaucer  and  his  England. 
Coulton,  G.  G.     From  St.  Francis  to  Dante. 
Creighton,  Bishop  Mandell.     Historical  Essays  and  Reviews. 
Creighton,  Bishop  Mandell.     Historical   Lectures   and   Addresses. 
Creighton,  Bishop  Mandell.     History  of  the  Papacy. 
Creighton,  Bishop  Mandell.     Persecution  and  Tolerance. 
Creighton,  Bishop  Mandell.    Simon  de  Montfort. 
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Encyclopoedia  Britannica.     Article  on  Wycliffe.     Vol.  XXVTII.     11th 

edition. 
FoRTESCUE,  Adrian.    The  Mass. 
Gasquet,  Cardinal.    The  Black  Death. 
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Green,  John  Richard.     Short  History  of  the  English  People, 
Gribble,  Francis.     The  Romance  of  the  Oxford  Colleges. 
GuizoT,  M.     The  History  of  England,  Vol.  I. 
Harnack,  Adolf.     History  of  Dogma. 
Harnack,  Adolf.     Bible  Reading  in  the  Early  Church. 
Henderson,  E.  F.    (Editor).     Select    Historical    Documents    of    the 

Middle  Ages. 
Jessopp,  Augustus.     The  Coming  of  the  Friars,  and  other  Historical 

Essays. 
JussERAND,  J.  H.     English    Wayfaring    Life    in    the    Middle    Ages. 

(Fourteenth  century). 


172      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

Lechler,  Gotthard  v.     John  Wycliffe  and  his  Enghsh  Precursors. 

Locke,  Cunton.     The  Age  of  the  Great  Western  Schism. 

Oman,  Charles.     The  Great  Revolt  of  1381. 

Poole,  Reginald  Lane.     Wycliffe  and  Movements  for  Reform. 

Rait,  Robert  S.     Life  in  the  Medieval  University. 

Ramsay,  Sir  James  H.     The  Angevin  Empire. 

Ranke,  L.  von.     History  of  the  Popes.     Vol.  I. 

Rashdall,  Hastings.     The   Universities  of   Europe   in   the   Middle 

Ages.     Vol.  II,  Part  II. 
Rock,  D.     Hierurgia,  or  the  Holy  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass. 
Sanderson,  Edgar.     History  of  England  and  the  British  Empire. 
Skeat,  Walter  W.     Geoffrey  Chaucer. 
Stevenson,  Francis  S.    Robert  Grosseteste. 

Stubbs,  Bishop  William.     Historical  Introduction  to  the  Rolls  Series. 
Taylor,  H.  O.     The  Medieval  Mind. 
Tout,  T.  F.     The  History  of  England.     Vol.  II. 
Trevelyan,  George  Macaulay.     England  in  the  Age  of  Wycliffe. 
Vincent,  M.  R.     The  Age  of  Hildebrand. 
Ward,  Adolphus  W.     Chaucer. 

Workman,  Herbert  B.     The  Dawn  of  the  Reformation. 
Workman,  Herbert  B.    The  Evolution  of  the  Monastic  Ideal. 


BOOK  II 
JOHN  WESLEY 

AND 

THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 


173 


I  have  felt 
A  Presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts ;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man ; 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things. 

Wordsworth  :  Lines  at  Tintern  Abbey. 


174 


CHAPTER  V 
ANCESTRY  AND  TRAINING 


175 


Amd  yet,  as  angels  in  some  brighter  dreams 

Call  to  the  soul  when  man  doth  sleep, 

So  some  strange  thoughts  transcend  our  wonted  themes, 

And  into  glory  peep. 

Then  bless  thy  secret  growth,  nor  catch 
At  noise,  but  thrive  unseen  and  dumb; 
Keep  clean,  be  as  fruit,  earn  life,  and  watch 
Till  the  white-winged  reapers  come. 

Henry  Vaughan  :   The  Seed  Growing  Secretly. 

"  But  God,  Who  is  able  to  prevail,  wrestled  with  him ;  marked 
him  for  His  own." 

IzAAK  Walton. 


176 


CHAPTER  V 

ANCESTRY    AND   TRAINING 

Religion  in  England  in  the  eighteenth  century  —  Personality  the  deter- 
mining factor  in  progress  —  Wesley's  birth  and  ancestry  —  The  early 
years  at  Epworth  —  The  Wesley  family  —  The  Charterhouse  —  Ox- 
ford University  —  Wesley's  self-condemnation  —  Preparation  for  Holy 
Orders  — •  His  Ordination  —  Elected  Fellow  of  Lincoln  College  — 
Curate  of  Wroote  —  William  Law  and  the  "Serious  Call"  —  Charles 
Wesley  at  Oxford  —  The  "Holy  Club"  —  Death  of  Samuel  Wesley 
—  The  Mission  to  Georgia  —  General  Oglethorpe  —  The  Moravian 
Brethren. 


We  deal  in  these  chapters  with  the  history  of  an  almost 
unparalleled  transformation  of  the  English  national  character 
effected  under  the  impulse  of  a  revival  of  Christianity  which 
subsequently  spread  throughout  the  British  Empire  and 
the  United  States.  That  revival  was  preceded  by  a  period 
of  spiritual  decline  and  moral  inertia  which  itself  had  fol- 
lowed the  brief  reign  of  Puritanism  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  The  clergymen  who  filled  the  pastoral  offices  of 
Anglicanism  or  of  Nonconformity  during  the  eighteenth 
century  were,  with  few  exceptions,  convinced  that  the  im- 
mediate, direct  action  of  the  living  God  upon  the  spirits 
of  men  was  practically  impossible  in  reality  and  well  nigh 
blasphemous  in  conception.  They  differed  widely  about 
theological  systems  and  methods  of  Church  organization, 
but  they  were  united  in  relegating  the  intervention  of  Deity 
in  matters  of  personal  religion  either  to  the  far  past  or  to 
the  future  that  lay  beyond  the  grave.  To  ward  off  assaults 
upon  their  respective  institutions  and  beliefs  seemed  to  all 
alike  a  more  imperative  duty  than  to  contend  against  the 
N  177 


178      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

deplorable  vice  and  crime  which  afflicted  society  on  every 
side.  The  regenerating  faith  of  the  New  Testament  was 
obscured,  while  the  scholarship  and  energies  which  should 
have  heralded  it  to  a  needy  race  were  expended  in  guarding 
sectarian  prejudices  and  shibboleths,  the  meanings  of  which 
were  not  always  intelligible. 

Yet  this  untoward  generation  produced  out  of  the  heart 
of  Anglicanism  the  man  of  Puritan  ancestry  who  reaffirmed 
the  truth  of  God's  presence  in  His  children,  and  who  was  in- 
strumental in  stimulating  and  organizing  a  faith  which  rested 
upon  Christ's  personal  word  and  self-communicated  life; 
a  faith  that  could  not  be  depreciated  by  controversy,  nor 
shocked  by  intellectual  changes,  nor  convulsed  by  social 
upheavals ;  an  overmastering  faith,  the  progress  of  which 
won  conquests  similar  to  those  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 
Many  had  perceived  the  crying  need  of  this  faith,  but  John 
Wesley  became  its  embodiment  and  messenger.  In  him 
and  in  his  work  Anglican  and  Puritan  coalesced — the  order 
and  dignity  of  the  one,  the  fearless  initiative  and  asceticism 
of  the  other — -and  admirably  served  their  mission  to  his 
own  and  succeeding  ages.  His  quenchless  zeal  enabled 
him  to  quicken  in  multitudes  of  his  fellow  men  that  repent- 
ance for  sin  and  sense  of  the  renewed  favor  of  God  which 
had  wrought  his  own  deliverance.  His  labors  had  a  pro- 
found and  pervasive  influence  on  the  evolution  of  Protest- 
antism, to  which  Mr.  Lecky  bears  witness  in  the  following 
words :  "  Although  the  career  of  the  elder  Pitt  and  the 
splendid  victories  by  land  and  sea  that  were  won  during  his 
ministry,  form  unquestionably  the  most  dazzling  episodes  in 
the  reign  of  George  II,  they  must  yield,  I  think,  in  real  im- 
portance to  that  religious  revolution  which  shortly  before  had 
begun  in  England  by  the  preaching  of  the  Wesleys  and  White- 
field."  1 

This  deserved  tribute,  which  has   received   a   tardy  yet 

'  "  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century  "  ;  Vol.  Ill,  p.  1. 


JOHN   WESLEY  179 

increasing  approval,  serves  to  bear  out  the  contention  of 
Goethe,  Carlyle,  and  Emerson,  that  personaHty  rather 
than  ideas  is  the  determining  factor  in  human  progress. 
But  while  a  character  such  as  Wesley's  does  infinitely  more 
for  the  advancement  of  morals  and  religion  than  any  ab- 
stract theory  or  mechanical  formula  possibly  could  accom- 
plish, it  also  creates  the  diflSculty  of  interpreting  him 
adequately.  There  is  a  mystery  of  genius  as  well  as  a 
mystery  of  godliness,  and  he  shared  in  both.  The  Oxford 
cleric  who  became  the  center  of  the  revolution  which  Lecky 
described  possessed  a  significance  which  requires  patient  and 
thorough  examination.  Literary  ingenuity  can  set  forth  the 
motions  of  his  gifted  mind  and  the  outward  expressions  of 
his  far-reaching  and  benevolent  sympathies,  but  it  falters 
in  attempting  to  delineate  the  secret  history  of  his  rich  and 
contagious  spirituality.  Although  his  was  one  of  those  hap- 
pily constituted  intellects  which  pierce  through  immaterial 
and  irrelevant  accretions  to  the  core  of  a  question,  his  nature 
was  complex,  and  his  spirit  accommodated  many  apparently 
contradictory  elements.  He  shared  the  sentiments  common 
to  saints  of  every  school,  and  displayed  an  admirable  cath- 
olicity toward  those  who  did  not  hold  his  opinions.  Yet 
some  of  his  biographers  have  embalmed  him  rather  than 
made  him  vital  to  our  apprehension,  and  others  have  treated 
him  as  a  quarry  from  which  to  excavate  the  building  mate- 
rial for  the  defenses  of  their  orthodoxy.  The  living  Wesley, 
as  one  of  the  chosen  vessels  of  God's  grace  and  a  prophet 
of  divine  realities  whose  life  and  teaching  were  an  inspiration 
and  a  blessing  to  the  Church,  should  not  be  submitted  to 
these  stereotyped  processes.  Nor  can  his  varied  qualities 
be  compressed  into  those  simplifying  generalizations  which 
gratify  the  advocates  of  a  theological  system  but  fail  to 
elucidate  the  deeper  meaning  of  the  man. 

He  was  born  at  Epworth  rectory,  in  the  county  and  dio- 
cese of  Lincoln,  on   the  17th   of   June,    1703,^   and  came 

*  The  new  style  of  reckoning  would  make  it  the  28th  of  June. 


180      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

of  a  sturdy  Anglo-Saxon  stock  whose  later  members  fur- 
nished their  quota  of  scholars  and  clergymen  to  the  service 
of  the  Church.^  Bartholomew  Westley,  the  great-grand- 
father of  John,  was  the  third  son  of  Sir  Herbert  West- 
ley,  of  Westleigh,  Devon,  and  Elizabeth  de  Wellesley,  of 
Dangan,  County  Meath,  Ireland.  An  Oxford  man,  he 
studied  both  medicine  and  divinity  in  the  University  where 
his  son,  grandson,  and  three  great-grandsons  were  after- 
wards educated.  In  1619  he  married  the  daughter  of  Sir 
Henry  Colley  of  Castle  Carberry,  Kildare,  Ireland,  and  after 
an  interval,  during  which  little  definite  is  known  concerning 
his  career,  Westley  became  in  1640  the  Rector  of  Catherston, 
and  also  held  the  neighboring  living  of  Charmouth  in 
Dorset.  When  Charles  II  fled  from  Cromw^ell's  "crowning 
mercy"  at  Worcester  in  1651,  he  attempted  to  cross  the 
Channel  from  Charmouth  to  France.  But  the  delay  of 
the  boat  chartered  to  convey  the  king  to  the  vessel  jeopard- 
ized the  scheme,  and  he  barely  escaped.  The  "puny  par- 
son's" bold  avowal  that  he  would  have  captured  the  monarch 
had  he  been  present  was  an  indication  of  the  political  opin- 
ions which  speedily  involved  Mr.  Westley  in  the  troubles 
of  the  Restoration.  In  1662  he  suffered  ejection  from  his 
living  under  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  and  thereafter  practiced 
as  a  physician  among  his  former  parishioners  and  at  Brid- 
port.  His  blameless  and  benevolent  character  seems  to  have 
been  a  protection  during  the  persecuting  days.  He  lived 
to  a  ripe  and  honored  age,  and  at  his  death  was  laid  to  rest 
in  the  churchyard  at  Lyme  Regis. 

John  Westley,  the  son  of  Bartholomew  and  the  paternal 
grandfather  of  the  man  who  bore  his  name  and  inherited 
his  spirit,  was  born  in  1636,  and  graduated  from  Oxford  in 
his  twenty-second  year  with  a  reputation  as  an  Oriental 

'  In  old  parish  registers  of  churches  in  the  vicinity  of  Bridport,  near 
Dorchester,  the  name  of  John  Westley  appears  in  1435  as  prebendary  and 
vicar  of  Sturminster :  in  1655  Jaspar,  son  of  Ephraim  Westley,  gentleman, 
resided  at  Weymouth,  and  in  1691  James  Westley  was  one  of  the  bailiffs 
of  Bridport. 


JOHN  WESLEY  181 

linguist.  The  Vice  Chancellor,  Dr.  Owen,  had  imbued 
him  with  Dissenting  views  of  Church  government,  and 
Westley,  probably  avoiding  Episcopal  ordination,  exercised 
his  first  ministry  among  the  fishermen  of  Radipole,  a  hamlet 
near  Weymouth.  In  1658  his  piety  and  culture  secured 
for  him  the  pastorate  of  Winterborne- Whitchurch,  in  Dorset, 
and  Cromwell's  Board  of  Commissioners,  known  as  "Triers," 
who  pronounced  upon  the  fitness  of  candidates  for  the  min- 
istry of  the  Church,  approved  the  selection.  In  1661,  the 
second  year  of  the  Restoration,  he  was  imprisoned  for  de- 
clining to  use  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  and  a  year  later 
was  ejected  from  his  living.  The  remaining  sixteen  years 
of  his  life  were  marked  by  repeated  labors  and  hardships; 
he  died  when  still  in  the  forties,  prematurely  worn  out  and 
apparently  thwarted  in  his  aims.  But  his  legacy  to  the 
Wesley  family  was  treasured  by  his  widow  and  children, 
who  transmitted  to  the  sons  of  Epworth  rectory  his  lofty 
example  of  a  singularly  pure  and  sacrificial  career,  ennobled 
by  the  sufferings  he  endured  for  the  sake  of  conscience. 

His  wife  was  the  daughter  of  Dr.  John  White,  the  patriarch 
of  Dorchester,  a  member  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  and 
one  of  the  original  patentees  of  the  Massachusetts  colony. 
Her  uncle,  Samuel  Fuller,  the  witty  divine  and  church  histo- 
rian, described  her  father  as  "a  grave  man,  who  would  yet 
willingly  contribute  his  shot  of  facetiousness  on  any  just 
occasion."  Mrs.  John  Westley  received  the  sympathy  of 
those  who  had  admired  her  husband's  adherence  to  his 
convictions,  and  by  their  assistance  she  was  enabled  to 
educate  her  children.  Her  son  Matthew  became  a  physician 
in  London ;  Samuel,  the  father  of  John  and  Charles  Wesley, 
was  intended  for  the  Dissenting  ministry,  and  was  sent  to 
Mr.  Martin's  Academy  on  Newington  Green  in  that  city 
to  obtain  his  training.^     The  lack  of  genuine  religion  and 

'  These  academies  were  established  after  the  passing  of  the  Toleration 
Act.  Prior  to  that,  Dissenting  ministers  acted  as  private  tutors  in  families 
or  received  pupils  in  their  own  homes.  Many  of  the  ministers  were  men  of 
learmng  and  power  and  linked  their  echools  with  the  history  of  Noncon- 


182      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

the  prevalence  of  sectarian  controversy  among  his  fellow- 
students  chilled  his  Nonconformity,  and,  notwithstanding 
his  tender  regard  for  his  father's  memory  and  for  his  mother's 
wishes,  he  began  to  examine  the  questions  at  issue  between 
the  Established  Church  and  Dissent.  He  naturally  felt 
reluctant  to  inform  his  mother  and  her  friends  of  his  impend- 
ing change;  yet  he  met  the  emergency  with  characteristic 
courage  and  promptitude,  and  having  carefully  considered 
the  situation  and  invoked  Heaven's  directing  wisdom,  he 
determined  to  seek  admission  to  the  Anglican  Church.  With 
this  end  in  view,  he  set  out  on  foot  for  Oxford,  with  little 
or  no  provision  for  his  expenses,  and  on  arriving  there  en- 
tered as  a  servitor  at  Exeter  College.  After  the  completion 
of  his  studies,  he  was  ordained  deacon  on  August  7,  1688, 
and  priest  in  February,  1689;  thus  reuniting  his  branch  of 
the  family  with  the  Church  which  had  expelled  his  father  and 
grandfather,  and  which  afterwards  looked  with  prejudice 
on  the  efforts  of  his  sons.  It  may  be  noted  here  that  the 
change  in  the  spelling  of  their  name  from  Westley  to  Wes- 
ley was  made  by  Samuel  on  the  ground  that  the  latter  was 
the  original  form. 

John  Wesley  was  equally  well  born  on  the  maternal 
side.  His  mother  was  the  youngest  daughter  of  Dr.  Samuel 
Annesley,  a  graduate  of  Queen's  College,  Oxford,  and  an" 
able,  genial,  and  erudite  divine  whose  conspicuous  gifts  were 
highly  esteemed  by  his  brethren.  Ejected  from  the  historic 
London  Church  of  St.  Giles,  Cripplegate,  Dr.  Annesley 
afterwards  ministered  to  a  congregation  worshipping  at 
Little  St.  Helens,  Bishopsgate,  where  his  reputation  as  a 
trusted  leader  earned  for  him  the  title,  "the  St.  Paul  of 
Nonconformity."  Mrs.  Wesley,  like  her  husband,  was  dis- 
satisfied with  the  Calvinistic  tenets  of  Puritan  theology  then 
prevalent,  and  while  still  a  girl  had  deliberately  renounced 

formity.  But  the  intellectual  activity  of  these  schools  injured  their  spiritual 
life,  and  herein  lay  the  secret  of  their  bickerings  and  ultimate  atrophy.  See 
The  Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature :   Vol.  X,  pp.  431^32. 


JOHN  WESLEY  183 

them  and  returned  to  the  Anghcan  fold.^  This  renunciation 
created  a  mutual  sympathy  between  her  and  Samuel  Wes- 
ley, whose  good  fortune  it  was  to  marry  her  during  the 
year  of  his  ordination.  From  the  first  the  young  couple 
struggled  under  burdens  of  poverty  and  debt  consequent  up- 
on a  meager  income  and  a  growing  family.  After  a  London 
curacy,  a  chaplaincy  in  the  navy,  and  a  brief  tenure  in  the 
small  living  of  South  Ormsby,  Lincolnshire,  they  came  in 
1697  to  Epwortlu  the  place  destined  to  be  the  scene  of  their 
joint  labors  for  nearly  forty  years.  The  new  rector,  then 
thirty-five  years  of  age,  received  scarcely  enough  support 
for  his  necessities.  The  rectory  was  a  three-storied  building 
of  timber  and  plaster,  thatched  with  straw ;  the  parish- 
ioners were  ignorant  and  degraded  farmers  and  peasants, 
bitterly  opposed  to  their  parson's  Tory  politics,  and  the 
majority  remained  long  heedless  of  his  religious  exhortations. 
They  have  been  described  by  the  Rev.  W.  B.  Stonehouse 
as  descending  from  the  Fenmen,  "a  race  according  to  the 
place  where  they  dwell,  rude,  uncivil,  and  envious  to  all 
others."  In  the  early  eighteenth  century  these  people  main- 
tained the  bad  reputation  of  their  ancestors.  They  formed 
an  insulated  group,  much  below  even  the  pitiable  average 
of  rural  intelligence,  turbulent  and  vulgar,  profane  and 
corrupt.  The  deference  usually  shown  to  superiors  in  long 
settled  communities  was  entirely  absent  from  their  behavior, 
and  they  despised  and  habitually  neglected  the  conventional 
observances  of  religion. 

The  market  town  of  Epworth,  containing  a  hitherto 
stationary  population  of  about  two  thousand,  is  situated 
on  the  Isle  of  Axholme,^  a  strip  of  land  ten  miles  long  and 
four  broad,  once  enclosed  by  five  rivers,  two  of  which  are 
now  only  marked  by  the  willow  trees  lining  their  former 

1  Archbishop  Laud,  to  his  credit,  had  always  protested  against  these 
tenets. 

*  The  Isle  of  Axholme  still  retains  the  chief  remaining  examples  of  the  old 
three-field  system  which  was  the  ancient  Aryan  method  of  tillage,  showing 
how  little  the  place  has  been  affected  by  the  surrounding  order  of  progress. 


184      THREE    RELIGIOUS  LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

banks.  The  fertile  plains  of  Lincolnshire  stretch  in  green 
expanse  beyond  the  gentle  slope  on  which  the  place  is 
located,  their  stagnant  marshes  drained  and  dotted  with 
woodland  groves,  prosperous  farmsteads,  and  herds  of  cattle. 
On  the  rising  ground  commanding  the  town  stands  the 
church  with  its  massive  tower.  The  parsonage  in  which 
John  Wesley  was  born  was  destroyed  by  an  incendiary  fire 
on  a  winter's  night  in  1709,  and  although  the  rector  promptly 
began  the  work  of  rebuilding,  the  new  edifice  remained  half 
furnished  for  several  years.  The  present  rectory  is  a  Queen 
Anne  structure  of  comfortable  dimensions,  with  one  of  those 
old-fashioned  English  gardens  which  harbor  peace  and  con- 
templation in  their  bordered  walks. 

Few  clergymen  seemed  less  fitted  to  minister  to  such  a 
parish  than  Samuel  Wesley,  and  even  his  wife's  superior 
discernment  could  not  prevent  frequent  misunderstandings 
between  pastor  and  flock  which  occasionally  involved  her 
also.  Yet  choleric,  stubborn  of  temper  and  somewhat  ec- 
centric in  conduct  as  the  rector  was,  his  shortcomings 
were  offset  by  his  cheerful  optimism,  his  courage,  and  his 
fidelity  to  his  calling.  He  contended  with  pecuniary  diffi- 
culties and  the  indifference  and  malignancy  of  his  parish- 
ioners until  his  high  sense  of  duty  and  his  independence 
finally  won  the  reluctant  confidence  of  those  whom  he 
served  according  to  his  own  ideas  instead  of  their  desires. 
His  tastes  and  aspirations  as  a  scholar  found  expression  in 
voluminous  writings,  none  of  which  had  any  particular 
value.  Swift  in  the  "Battle  of  the  Books,"  and  Pope  in 
the  "Dunciad,"  dismissed  his  versifications  with  a  phrase, 
and  even  the  favorable  eye  of  his  son  John  failed  to  detect 
any  signs  of  poetry  in  them.  His  chief  work  in  prose  was 
a  Commentary  on  the  Book  of  Job,  in  which  he  brought 
to  the  memory  of  the  much  enduring  Patriarch  an  accumu- 
lation of  curious  and  varied  learning.  Yet  these  literary 
efforts  kept  alive  in  his  frugal  household  the  traditions  of 
scholarship,  and  doubtless  served  to  cheer  the  lonely  lot  of 


JOHN   WESLEY  185 

an  intellectually  ambitious  man  who  was  severed  from 
fellowship  with  craftsmen  of  the  pen.  He  weathered  the 
storms  of  his  tempestuous  passage,  and  steadily  maintained 
the  Apostolic  vision  of  a  world  converted  to  the  true  faith, 
himself  volunteering  for  missionary  service  in  the  far  East 
that  this  cause  might  be  advanced.  An  ardent  patriot 
and  a  churchman,  he  never  despaired  of  affairs  in  the  home- 
land. "Charles,"  said  the  father  as  he  lay  on  his  death- 
bed and  addressed  his  youngest  son,  "  be  steady ;  the  Chris- 
tian faith  will  surely  revive  in  these  kingdoms.  You  shall 
see  it,  though  I  shall  not."  To  John  he  had  before  testified, 
"  The  inward  witness,  son,  the  inward  witness,  —  this  is 
the  proof,  the  strongest  proof,  of  Christianity." 

"I  did  not  at  the  time  understand  them,"  remarked 
John  in  after  days,  speaking  of  these  dying  words ;  yet 
when  viewed  in  the  light  of  Methodist  history,  they  show 
the  prophetic  instinct,  and  how  the  far-reaching  fibers  of 
the  Evangelical  Revival  were  nurtured  in  the  hearts  of  that 
family  from  the  days  of  Bartholomew  and  John  Westley  to 
those  of  Samuel  Wesley  and  his  sons. 

His  wife  exercised  the  dominant  influence  in  the  house- 
hold, and  John  was  essentially  his  mother's  child.  Her 
Anglicanism  was  blended  with  the  sterner  qualities  of  her 
Puritan  father,  and  her  zeal  was  no  less  ardent  because  it 
was  equable.  Although  deficient  in  some  milder  attributes 
of  the  feminine  nature,  and  without  that  sense  of  humor 
which  would  have  softened  the  rigidities  of  her  domestic 
rule,  she  excelled  in  simplicity,  dignity,  practicality,  and 
firmness  of  purpose,  traits  which  made  her  affection  a  source 
of  strength  and  security.  Of  the  numerous  children  ^  born 
to  this  excellent  lady  all  were  gifted,  and  some  were  doomed 
to  saddened  and  disappointed  lives,  but  two  of  them  founded 
the  Methodism  of  which  she  was  a  primal  source.      Her 

1  Epworth  was  the  birthplace  of  fifteen  of  the  nineteen  children  of  Samuel 
and  Susannah  Wesley.  Samuel,  the  eldest  son.  who  was  born  in  London, 
was  thirteen  years  older  than  John,  and  Charles  four  years  younger. 


186      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

home  was  a  school  of  manners,  morals,  and  rehgion,  in  which 
their  conversation  and  intercourse  were  closely  guarded,  and 
turned  into  the  most  profitable  channels.  She  taught  them 
letters;  their  knowledge  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  pro- 
fessions of  piety  were  the  objects  of  her  unstinted  care,  from 
which  the  duties  and  privations  of  her  household  could  not 
detain  her.  Although  her  Spartan  regime  reacted  on  some 
of  the  children,  in  later  days  they  referred  to  her  in  terms 
of  the  liveliest  gratitude,  seeking  her  counsel,  and  making 
her  the  recipient  of  their  confidences.  The  touch  of  human- 
ness,  which  would  have  relieved  the  austerities  of  her  disci- 
pline without  lowering  its  tone,  came  with  the  passing  of 
the  years ;  time  was  generous  to  Mrs.  Wesley  in  that  it 
mellowed  her,  adding  to  her  grace  and  tenderness.  Her 
assiduous  defense  of  the  circle  she  adorned  was  a  revela- 
tion of  her  goodness  and  wisdom,  virtues  which  her  letters 
to  John  and  Charles  abundantly  confirm.  With  such  a 
mother,  the  Church  would  have  been  justified  in  expecting 
great  things  from  the  sons.  To  enlarge  upon  her  worth 
is  superfluous,  since  that  has  been  emphasized  by  many 
authors  and  moralists  who  have  wondered  at  her  tranquil 
authority  over  a  family  so  highly  individualized,  and  one 
which  conferred  such  priceless  benefits  on  mankind.  The 
latent  Puritanism  to  which  her  sons  afterwards  appealed 
with  an  unerring  belief  in  its  desire  for  God,  and  which 
produced  its  best  results  in  regions  beyond  the  sphere  of 
the  State,  found  no  finer  or  more  complete  setting  for 
the  spiritual  phases  of  Protestant  history  than  that  given 
at  Epworth  by  Susannah  Wesley.  Content  to  cultivate 
in  poverty  and  seclusion  the  purer  ideals  which  political 
struggles  and  changes  had  failed  to  maintain,  she  lived  to 
a  beautiful  and  venerable  age,  and  grew  in  holiness  and  influ- 
ence, until  called  to  the  life  beyond,  when  her  happy  spirit 
passed  from  peace  to  deeper  peace  with  confidence  and 
ithanksgiving. 


JOHN   WESLEY  187 


II 


The  first  decade  in  Epworth  was  full  of  vexations.  When' 
John  was  but  two  years  old  his  father  was  committed  to 
Lincoln  Castle  for  debt.  The  rector's  enemies  not  only 
brought  this  trouble  upon  him;  they  also  destroyed  hisl 
crops,  injured  his  cattle,  and  after  several  attempts,  burned  j 
his  home.  John,  who  had  been  overlooked  in  the  confusion, 
was  rescued  from  the  upper  story  at  the  last  moment  by 
a  man  raised  on  the  shoulders  of  others  to  snatch  the  child 
out  of  the  flames.  Immediately  afterwards  the  roof  col- 
lapsed, and  his  father,  overcome  with  gratitude,  fell  upon/ 
his  knees  and  acknowledged  the  providence  which  had<' 
delivered  the  lad.  In  later  days  John  frequently  recurred 
to  the  incident  then  stamped  upon  his  memory  as  a  proof  of 
God's  personal  supervision  of  his  life,  and  desired  that  his 
epitaph  should  commemorate  it  in  the  words,  "Is  not  this 
a  brand  plucked  from  the  burning?"  The  capricious  esca- 
pades of  "Old  Jeffrey,"  the  ghost  which  haunted  the  rectory, 
were  also  among  the  vivid  recollections  of  his  youth.  He 
had  entered  the  Charterhouse  School  when  this  much  dis- 
cussed visitor  from  another  world  began  those  disturb- 
ances which  continued  during  the  months  of  December  and 
January,  1716  and  1717.  The  real  source  of  the  phenomena 
was  never  discovered ;  the  Wesleys  attributed  them  to  a 
supernatural  cause,  but  seemed  not  to  have  been  affrighted 
by  this  impression.  Whenever  prayers  were  offered  for  the 
Royal  Household  the  spirit  manifested  its  Jacobite  sym- 
pathies by  vigorous  poundings,  a  form  of  remonstrance 
which  greatly  amused  the  children.  John's  frank  acceptance 
of  this  and  similar  marvels,  references  to  which  are  frequent 
in  his  writings,  was  more  than  an  ordinary  recognition  of 
such  occurrences;    it  savored  strongly  of  superstition. 

Samuel,  the  eldest  son,  entered  Westminster  School  in 
1704,  became  a  Queen's  scholar  in  1709,  and  went  up  to 
Christ  Church,   Oxford,   in   1711.     He  returned  to  West- 


188      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

minster  as  head  usher,  was  admitted  to  Holy  Orders,  and 
in  process  of  time  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  group  of 
notables  whose  political  and  ecclesiastical  opinions  he  fully 
shared.  Of  that  select  company  were  Bishop  Atterbury, 
the  stormy  petrel  of  the  Anglican  episcopacy,  Harley,  Earl 
of  Oxford,  Prior,  Addison,  and  Dean  Swift.  This  Samuel 
Wesley  was  a  poet  of  some  moment,  an  accomplished  scholar, 
and  a  conservative  man  of  retiring  disposition  who  looked 
with  alarm  upon  the  religious  "extravagances"  of  his  younger 
brothers.  He  was  designated  in  1732  head  master  of  Blun- 
dell's  School  at  Tiverton  in  Devonshire,  well  known  to 
readers  of  Blackmore's  "Lorna  Doone,"  and  died  there  on 
November  6,  1739,  without  having  realized  the  preferment 
which  might  have  been  his  had  the  Tory  party  not  been 
defeated  by  its  allegiance  to  the  Stuarts. 

John  entered  the  Charterhouse  School,  London,  at  eleven 
years  of  age,  on  the  nomination  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham, 
and  remained  there  until  he  was  seventeen.  The  name  of 
this  famous  school  is  derived  from  the  French  Maison  Char- 
treuse, a  religious  house  of  the  Carthusian  monks,  and  as  such 
was  applied  to  the  various  Carthusian  monasteries  in  Eng- 
land. Its  familiar  and  corrupted  usage  is  connected  with 
the  Charterhouse,  where  on  a  former  burying  ground  near 
the  city  wall.  Sir  Walter  de  Manny,  at  whose  death  all 
England  mourned,  and  Bishop  Northbury,  founded  in  1371 
the  Priory  of  the  Salutation.  After  the  dissolution  of  the 
great  monasteries  in  1535  the  property  passed  through 
various  hands  until  in  1611  the  Earl  of  Suffolk  sold  it  to 
Thomas  Sutton,  one  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  Masters  of  Ord- 
nance, who  here  established  a  brotherhood  for  eighty  poor 
men  and  a  school  of  forty  poor  boys.  The  latter  has  long 
ranked  as  one  of  the  foremost  public  schools  of  the  realm, 
and  boasts  among  its  scholars  the  names  of  Crashaw, 
Lovelace,  Barrow,  Roger  Williams,  Addison,  Steele,  Wesley, 
Blackstone,  Grote,  Thirlwall,  Leech,  Havelock,  and  Thack- 
eray.   The  school  was  removed  to  its  handsome  new  build- 


JOHN   WESLEY  189 

ings  at  Godalming,  Surrey,  in  1872,  but  the  fascinating 
place  which  Wesley  loved  and  frequently  revisited  stands 
practically  the  same  to-day,  and  the  gentlemen  pensioners 
whom  Thackeray  immortalized  in  "Colonel  Newcome" 
still  gather  at  the  sound  of  the  curfew  in  the  stately  Eliza- 
bethan hall,  and  worship  in  the  dim  chapel  which  contains 
Sutton's  alabaster  tomb. 

Public  school  life  in  Wesley's  England  was  cruel  beyond 
degree;  the  elder  boys  bullied  the  younger  ones,  who  had 
to  be  content  with  short  commons  at  table,  and  submit  to 
brutal  treatment  on  every  side.^  The  discipline  of  the  rec- 
tory had  prepared  John  for  his  ordeal ;  he  did  not  complain 
of  the  food,  nor  resist  the  rough  handling  of  his  companions, 
as  Charles  did  at  Westminster  when  he  thrashed  one  of  his 
worst  tormentors.  Yet  his  quiet  persistence  and  advanced 
knowledge  gained  him  a  standing  even  in  that  ruffianly 
crowd,  and  he  always  attributed  his  abstemious  habits  and 
longevity  to  the  scanty  diet  and  abundant  exercise  of  the 
Charterhouse.  The  Rev.  Luke  Tyerman  makes  the  por- 
tentous announcement  that  "John  Wesley  entered  the 
Charterhouse  a  saint,  and  left  it  a  sinner."  ^  What  particu- 
lar kind  of  saint  or  sinner  he  had  in  mind  the  vigorous  biog- 
rapher of  Wesley  does  not  define;  and  the  statement  can 
be  dismissed  as  one  of  those  vagaries  which  are  due  to  theo- 
logical prejudice.  It  is  highly  questionable  if  the  boy 
suffered  any  loss  of  genuine  faith  or  purity.  He  had  come 
from  a  sheltered  existence  at  home,  where  his  early  interest 
in  religious  matters  induced  his  father  to  admit  him  to  Holy 
Communion  when  he  was  eight  years  old.  His  fastidious 
scruples  had  already  attracted  the  attention  of  those  about 
him,  and  needed  no  further  encouragement,  while  the  drastic 
treatment  he  received  from  his  schoolfellows  probably  saved 
him  from  becoming  a  pious  prig  by  discouraging  any  dis- 

•  Leech's  "Winchester  College"  and  the  article  on  Eton  in  the  Victoria 
County  History  of  Buckinghamshire  give  striking  accounts  of  the  harshness 
and  ill  usage  of  eighteenth  century  public  schools. 

'  "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley" ;   Vol.  I,  p.  22. 


190      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

position  towards  artificiality.  During  his  six  years  in 
London  he  kept  in  close  touch  with  his  parents  and  his 
brother  Samuel,  who  had  oversight  of  Charles  at  Westmin- 
ster and  of  John  at  the  Charterhouse  throughout  the  four 
years  the  three  brothers  were  together  in  the  capital.  Sur- 
rounded by  these  influences,  John  maintained  his  private 
devotions  and  communicated  on  the  appointed  days. 

He  entered  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  in  the  summer  of  1720, 
having  already  gained  solid  advantages  in  the  breadth  and 
sincerity  of  his  character  and  a  thorough  drilling  in  the 
classics.  As  a  Carthusian  scholar  at  the  University  he 
received  an  annuity  of  forty  pounds,  an  income  which  made  it 
almost  impossible  for  him  to  keep  out  of  debt.  His  father's 
finances  were  too  straitened  to  be  of  much  avail,  and  his 
mother's  letters  contained  frequent  advices  on  the  need  for 
economy.  Yet  the  monetary  drawback  did  not  hinder  his 
serious  use  of  those  opportunities  which  his  fellow  students 
for  the  most  part  neglected. 

The  University  was  at  a  low  ebb,  too  careful  for  the 
interests  of  the  banished  Stuart  dynasty,  and  so  indifferent 
toward  scholarship  as  to  provoke  Wesley's  exclamation  — 
"Oh!  what  is  so  scarce  as  learning  save  religion?"  Edward 
Gibbon  described  a  typical  tutor  of  the  day  as  a  man  who 
"  remembered  that  he  had  a  salary  to  receive,  and  forgot  that 
he  had  a  duty  to  perform."  ^  Separated  from  the  life  and 
progress  of  the  nation,  supercilious  toward  the  Hanoverian 
succession,  which,  despite  its  foreign  extraction,  was  the 
safeguard  of  constitutional  liberties,  and  without  any  effective 
internal  supervision,  Oxford  had  fallen  on  evil  days,  the 
more  pronounced  because  of  its  perverse  blindness  to  any 
defects.  Students  evaded  their  classes,  wasting  their  time 
in  drinking  and  gambling.  Idleness,  ignorance,  and  decep- 
tion abounded.  Candidates  for  degrees  could  purchase  a 
dispensation  freeing  them  from  attending  lectures,  some  of 

1  It  should  be  noted  that  Gibbon's  impressions  of  Oxford  were  received 
when  he  was  a  youth  of  fifteen. 


JOHN   WESLEY  191 

which  were  never  given,  and  had  others  been  omitted  no 
serious  loss  would  have  been  incurred.  This  betrayal  of 
trust  and  the  general  immorality  intensified  Wesley's  sense 
of  separateness.  Twenty  years  later  he  rebuked  them  in  a 
sermon  preached  before  the  University  and  exhorted  the 
colleges  to  mend  their  ways.  In  the  meantime  the  reli- 
gious devotion  of  his  adolescence  began  to  weaken  under 
the  stress  of  his  studies  and  social  engagements.  But  he 
was  far  removed  from  the  gross  pursuits  of  many  of  his 
fellow  students,  thoroughly  reputable  and  conscientious  in 
his  dealings,  and  justly  respected  for  the  propriety  of  his 
conduct.  His  earliest  diaries  show  that  he  read  popular 
dramas,  took  a  special  interest  in  the  gay  Horace,  and 
studied  the  graver  works  of  Homer,  Virgil,  Juvenal,  Spenser 
Shakespeare,  and  Milton. 

He  spent  the  Christmas  of  1725  with  college  friends, 
at  the  rectories  of  Broadway  and  Stanton,  villages  situated 
under  the  Cotswold  Hills,  in  one  of  the  loveliest  valleys 
of  England.  Here  he  met  Miss  Betty  Kirkham,  probably 
the  "religious  friend"  who  had  first  induced  him  in  the 
preceding  April  to  enter  earnestly  upon  a  new  life.^ 
Another  of  his  companions  was  Mrs.  Pendarvis,  of 
the  Granville  family  of  Buckland,  a  third  place  in  the 
vicinity.  This  fascinating  young  widow,  the  niece  of  Lord 
Lansdowne,  afterwards  the  wife  of  Dr.  Delaney  of  Dublin, 
was  one  of  the  accomplished  women  of  the  time,  to  whom 
Edmund  Burke  paid  an  unusual  tribute  for  her  culture  and 
conversation.  Wesley  maintained  a  correspondence  with 
both  ladies,  addressing  Miss  Kirkham  as  Varanese  and  Mrs. 
Pendarvis  as  Aspasia.  He  danced  at  a  wedding  which  took 
place  during  the  vacation  and  also  with  his  sisters  at  Ep- 
worth  upon  his  visits  there,  and  returned  to  Oxford  to 
reproach  himself  for  his  susceptibility  to  the  charms  of  a 
bewitching  circle.     It  was  his  custom  on  Saturday  evenings 

'■  "The  Journal  of  John  Wesley":  edited  by  Rev.  Nehemiah  Curnock; 
Vol.  I,  p.  15. 


:| 


192      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

to  record  the  events  of  the  moving  hours,  and  confess  his 
faults.  "Have  I  loved  women  or  company  more  than 
God?"^  he  asked,  shortly  after  his  return  from  Stanton. 
The  inquiry  showed  that  while  enjoying  the  pleasures 
of  a  refined  taste,  he  also  felt  that  to  fear  God  and  to 
have  no  other  fear  is  the  principle  which  not  only  safeguards 
religion,  but  asserts  its  truth  and  wisdom  in  all  affairs 
of  life.  In  retrospect  he  was  unsparing  toward  himself,  and 
sometimes  demanded  more  than  his  nature  or  circumstances 
could  then  afford,  striving  after  a  degree  of  excellence  well- 
nigh  unattainable  in  those  who  have  to  mingle  in  the  current 
of  human  affairs.  With  guileless  and  unreserved  candor  he 
exposed  the  inmost  secrets  of  his  soul,  and  his  sincerity  led 
him  to  reflect,  "Who  more  foolish  and  faithless  than  I  was?" 
He  did  not  insinuate  his  experiences  nor  gloss  them ;  he 
proclaimed  them  from  the  house-tops.  "I  still  said  my 
prayers,  both  in  public  and  private ;  and  read,  with  the 
Scriptures,  several  other  books  of  religion.  .  .  .  Yet  I  had 
not  all  this  while  so  much  as  a  notion  of  inward  holiness; 
nay,  went  on  habitually  and,  for  the  most  part,  very  con- 
tentedly, in  some  or  other  known  sin;  though  with  some 
intermission  and  short  struggles,  especially  before  and  after 
the  Holy  Communion,  which  I  was  obliged  to  receive  thrice 
a  year."  ^  This  confession  disquieted  him  more  than  it 
need  disquiet  others.  While  we  should  not  refuse  to  admit 
the  inferences  which  lie  on  the  surface  of  his  statement,  we 
must  not  suffer  the  phraseology  to  mislead  us.  The  "  known 
sin"  of  which  Wesley  speaks  can  be  judged  in  the  light  of 
his  maturer  experience,  when  a  leaning  toward  asceticism 
rendered  him  sensitive  to  what  may  have  been  at  their  best 
harmless  amusements,  and  at  their  worst  mild  indiscretions. 
Assuredly,  he  did  not  easily  yield  to  the  temptations  of 
a  University   career.      He  was  remiss  in  his  expenditure 

'  "The  Journal  of  John  Wesley":    edited  by  Rev.  Nehemiah  Curnock; 
Vol.  I,  p.  52. 

*  L.  Tyerman  :   "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;  Vol.  I,  p.  24. 


JOHN   WESLEY  193 

of  money,  considering  its  scarcity  at  Epworth,  and  his 
parents  properly  warned  him  to  be  more  careful  in  this 
respect,  but  he  never  deliberately  disregarded  the  obvious 
distinction  between  good  and  evil.  The  content  of  the 
term  sin  varies  with  acuteness  of  spiritual  perception; 
where  this  faculty  is  unduly  alert,  acts  are  included  in  the 
category  of  sins  which  by  no  means  fall  within  the  proper 
meaning  of  the  word.  Spiritually-minded  men  and  women 
are  the  severest  arbiters  of  their  own  past,  and  are  always 
prone  to  depreciate  their  motives  and  deeds.  Their  writings 
teem  with  accusations  against  themselves,  which  not  infre- 
quently are  the  shadows  cast  by  an  intense  yearning  to  know 
and  do  the  will  of  Heaven,  that  they  may  enter  into  its  more 
perfect  fellowship.  It  should  be  understood  that  from  his 
earliest  youth  Wesley  had  been  attached  to  noble  ideals, 
and  that  throughout  a  long  life  he  seldom  swerved  from 
the  hard  and  narrow  path  of  duty. 

During  the  first  four  years  of  his  residence  at  Oxford  he 
gave  no  indication  that  he  proposed  entering  the  Anglican 
ministry,  although  there  is  little  doubt  that  his  parents 
had  always  hoped  such  would  be  his  decision^  His  father 
frequently  expressed  the  desire  that  he  should  do  so,  and 
in  1725  Wesley  began  to  read  the  works  of  Thomas  a  Kempis 
and  Jeremy  Taylor,  with  the  result  that  his  religious  life 
became  more  pronounced,  and  he  gave  himself  to  prayer 
and  meditation.  His  correspondence  with  his  mother,  who 
was  then,  as  always,  his  guide  and  confessor,  shows  that  he 
seriously  questioned  his  fitness  for  Holy  Orders.  The  ideal 
of  the  writer  of  "De  Imitatione  Christi"  repelled  him  as 
being  too  cold  and  austere,  and  he  complains  in  a  letter  to 
his  mother  of  a  Kempis  for  "inverting  instead  of  disciplin- 
ing the  natural  tendencies  of  humanity."  Taylor's  exhor- 
tation to  humility  seemed  to  him  to  clash  with  the  claims 
of  truth.^     Notwithstanding  these  criticisms,  both  authors 

>  Julia  Wedgwood :  "John  Wesley  and  the  Evangelical  Reaction  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century"  ;   p.  33. 


194      THREE    RELIGIOUS  LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

introduced  Wesley  to  depths  and  reaches  of  the  spiritual 
realm  hitherto  unknown  to  him.  They  stimulated  his 
faith,  and  placed  him  under  an  obligation  he  afterwards 
acknowledged.  Taylor's  "Holy  Living  and  Holy  Dying" 
had  exceedingly  affected  him.  He  remarked,  "Instantly  I 
resolved  to  dedicate  all  my  life  to  God — all  my  thoughts,  and 
words,  and  actions,  —  being  thoroughly  convinced  there  was 
no  medium  ;  but  that  every  part  of  my  life  (not  some  only) 
must  either  be  a  sacrifice  to  God,  or  myself,  that  is,  in  effect, 
the  devil."  ^  His  mother  did  not  always  satisfy  his  inquiries, 
but  she  admirably  summed  up  the  question  of  his  general 
relation  to  the  world  in  the  following  manner,  "Take  this 
rule  —  whatever  impairs  the  tenderness  of  your  conscience, 
obscures  your  sense  of  God,  or  takes  the  relish  off  spiritual 
things,  that  thing  is  sin  to  you,  however  innocent  it  may 
be  in  itself."  ^  Her  anxiety  for  his  safe  emergence  from 
theological  perplexities  prompted  similar  counsels  which 
reveal  her  at  her  best  both  as  a  Christian  and  a  thought- 
ful student  of  current  doctrinal  statements.  "But  if 
you  would  be  free  from  fears  and  doubts  concerning  your 
future  happiness,"  she  wrote  on  July  21,  1725,  "every  morn- 
ing and  evening  commit  your  soul  to  Jesus  Christ,  in  a  full 
faith  in  His  power  and  will  to  save  you.  If  you  do  this 
seriously  and  constantly,  He  will  take  you  under  His  conduct ; 
He  will  guide  you  by  His  Holy  Spirit  into  the  way  of  truth, 
and  give  you  strength  to  walk  in  it.  He  will  dispose  of  the 
events  of  God's  providence  to  your  spiritual  advantage; 
and  if,  to  keep  you  humble  and  more  sensible  of  your  de- 
pendence on  Him,  He  permit  you  to  fall  into  lesser  sins,  be 
not  discouraged ;  for  He  will  certainly  give  you  repentance, 
and  safely  guide  you  through  all  the  temptations  of  this 
world,  and,  at  the  last,  receive  you  to  Himself  in  glory."  ' 


1  L.  Tyerman :    "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  36. 

2  Julia  Wedgwood:    "John  Wesley  and  the  Evangelical  Reaction  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century"  ;    p.  34. 

'  L.  Tyerman :    "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  38. 


JOHN  WESLEY  195 

As  his  ordination  approached,  the  Thirty-nine  Articles 
were  scrutinized,  particularly  those  relating  to  Predestination, 
and  Mrs.  Wesley  comments  on  its  extreme  interpretation 
in  a  letter  dated  August  18,  1725.  "The  doctrine  of  predes- 
tination, as  maintained  by  the  rigid  Calvinists,  is  very  shock- 
ing, and  ought  to  be  abhorred,  because  it  directly  charges 
the  Most  High  God  with  being  the  author  of  sin.  I  think 
you  reason  well  and  justly  against  it ;  for  it  is  certainly  in- 
consistent with  the  justice  and  goodness  of  God  to  lay  any 
man  under  physical  or  moral  necessity  of  committing  sin,  ''ji^ 
and  then  to  punish  him  for  doing  it."  ^  Their  interchange  of 
sentiments  occupied  eight  months,  at  the  end  of  which  time 
Mrs.  Wesley  wrote,  "I  approve  the  disposition  of  your  mind, 
and  think  the  sooner  you  are  deacon  the  better."  With 
such  commendation,  and  after  exercising  every  care  in  prep- 
aration for  the  office  he  was  about  to  assume,  John  Wesley 
solemnly  offered  himself  for  the  Christian  ministry.  He 
was  ordained  deacon  on  Lord's  Day,  September  19,  1725, 
by  Doctor  John  Potter,  Bishop  of  Oxford,  who  three  years 
and  three  days  later  admitted  him  to  priest's  orders. 

in 

This  event  marked  the  beginning  of  an  era  in  Wesley's 
religious  development.  Hitherto  he  had  known  some  re- 
laxation from  his  studies,  and  an  acquaintance  who  must 
have  shared  his  hours  of  ease  described  him  as  "the  very 
sensible  and  active  collegian,  baffling  every  one  by  the 
subtleties  of  logic,  and  laughing  at  them  for  being  so  easily 
routed ;  a  young  fellow  of  the  finest  classical  taste,  of  the 
most  liberal  and  manly  sentiments.  He  was  gay  and 
sprightly,  with  a  turn  for  wit  and  humor."  ^  His  excellent 
character  and  scholarship,  combined  with  his  social  gifts, 
obtained  for  him  a  fellowship  of  Lincoln   College   in   the 

1  L.  Tyerman  :    "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  40. 

2  John  Telford  :   "  The  Life  of  John  Wesley"  ;   p.  33. 


196      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

spring  of  1726,  an  honor  indeed  for  one  so  young,  who  had 
not  yet  received  his  master's  degree.  With  his  entrance 
there  at  the  beginning  of  the  October  term,  he  imposed  a 
stricter  rule  upon  himself  and  wrote  to  his  brother  Samuel, 
"Leisure  and  I  have  taken  leave  of  one  another."  Mon- 
days and  Tuesdays  he  gave  to  Greek  and  Latin;  Wednes- 
days to  logic  and  ethics ;  Thursdays,  to  Hebrew  and  Arabic ; 
Fridays,  to  metaphysics  and  natural  philosophy ;  Saturdays, 
to  oratory  and  poetry ;  Sundays,  to  divinity.  He  was 
appointed  Greek  lecturer  and  moderator  of  the  classes,  which 
assembled  six  times  a  week  for  disputation  on  stated  themes, 
his  duty  being  to  preside  over  and  conclude  the  debates.^ 
While  he  always  disliked  needless  controversy,  by  means  of 
this  occupation  he  acquired  a  dexterity  in  argument  which 
was  afterwards  of  no  small  service.  His  general  reading 
was  well  chosen  and  showed  him  to  be  a  scholar  of  a  substan- 
tial sort,  without  that  fear  for  the  corrosive  effect  of  intel- 
lectualism  on  faith  which  has  beset  so  many  advocates  of 
religion.  Writing  to  one  of  his  pupils  in  August,  1731,  he 
tendered  the  following  advice :  "  You,  who  have  not  the  as- 
surance of  a  day  to  live,  are  not  wise  if  you  waste  a  moment. 
The  shortest  way  to  knowledge  seems  to  be  this:  1.  To 
ascertain  what  knowledge  you  desire  to  attain.  2.  To  read 
no  book  which  does  not  in  some  way  tend  to  the  attainment 
of  that  knowledge.  3.  To  read  no  book  which  does  tend 
to  the  attainment  of  it,  unless  it  be  the  best  in  its  kind. 
4.  To  finish  one  before  you  begin  another.  5.  To  read  them 
all  in  such  order,  that  every  subsequent  book  may  illustrate 
and  confirm  the  preceding."  ^ 

His  father,  then  verging  on  old  age  and  enduring  many 
afflictions,  rejoiced  over  the  preferment  of  his  "dear  Mr. 
Fellow-Elect  of  Lincoln.  Wliat  will  be  my  own  fate  God 
only  knows,  sed  passi  graviora,  wherever  I  am,  my  Jack  is 

*  The  disputations  were  the  relics  of  that  medieval  system  which  in- 
sisted on  logic  as  the  main  part  of  a  University  training. 

2  L.  Tyerman :    "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  81. 


JOHN   WESLEY  197 

Fellow  of  Lincoln."  ^  The  college  was  founded  in  1427, 
by  Richard  Fleming,  the  recreant  Lollard  who,  as  already 
stated,  became  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  burnt  Wycliffe's  bones, 
endeavored  to  extirpate  his  teachings  at  Oxford,  and  ordered 
that  "any  fellow  tainted  with  these  heresies  should  be  cast 
out,  like  a  diseased  sheep,  from  the  fold  of  the  college." 
Wesley's  fellowship  on  Fleming's  foundation  once  more 
demonstrated  the  folly  of  such  provision  against  the  inevi- 
table changes  of  time.  The  crass  materialism  and  neglect 
which  demoralized  the  University  during  the  eighteenth 
century  were  not  so  prevalent  at  Lincoln  as  elsewhere 
in  Oxford.  The  atmosphere  of  the  college  was  more  con- 
genial to  Wesley's  intentions  than  Christ  Church  had  been, 
where  he  resented  those  companionships  of  which  he  after- 
wards said,  "Even  their  harmless  conversation,  so-called, 
damped  all  my  good  resolutions.  I  saw  no  possible  way  of 
getting  rid  of  them,  unless  it  should  please  God  to  remove 
me  to  another  college.  He  did  so,  in  a  manner  utterly  con- 
trary to  all  human  probability.  I  was  elected  Fellow  of  a 
college  where  I  knew  not  one  person.  I  foresaw  abundance 
of  people  would  come  to  see  me  .  .  .  but  I  had  now  fixed 
my  plan.  I  resolved  to  have  no  acquaintance  by  chance, 
but  by  choice ;  and  to  choose  such  only  as  would  help  me 
on  my  way  to  heaven.  ...  I  knew  that  many  reflections 
would  follow ;  but  that  did  not  move  me."  ^  The  men  of 
Lincoln  were  "well-natured  and  well-bred,"  yet  their  polite 
intercourse  palled  on  him;  he  repelled  their  advances,  and 
shut  himself  up  to  his  own  pursuits.  Even  at  this  the  world 
was  too  much  with  him,  and  he  looked  with  longing  upon 
the  prospect  of  a  mastership  in  a  Yorkshire  school,  "  so  pent 
up  between  two  hills  that  it  is  scarce  accessible  on  any  side, 
so  that  you  can  expect  little  company  from  without,  and 
within  there  is  none  at  all."  For  such  solitude  he  was 
prepared  to  sacrifice  his  position  at  Oxford.     In  a  less  bal- 

1  L.  Tyerman  :   "Life  and  Times  of  Samuel  Wesley"  ;   p.  399. 
*  Ibid.,  "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  55. 


198      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

anced  nature  than  Wesley's  the  consequences  of  this  inordi- 
nate craving  for  a  cloistered  retreat  would  have  been  inju- 
rious, and  as  it  was  the  desire  determined  the  course  of  his 
private  life.  Yet  his  companions  did  not  charge  his  seclu- 
sive  habits  to  any  lack  of  geniality ;  on  the  contrary,  those 
who  were  admitted  to  his  friendship  lauded  his  amiability, 
and  one  of  them  wrote  to  him,  lamenting  his  enforced  ab- 
sence from  the  college  as  a  deprivation  for  them. 

After  spending  the  summer  of  1726  at  Ep worth,  where  he 
acted  as  his  father's  curate,  he  passed  a  year  in  residence 
at  Oxford,  returning  again  to  Epworth  in  1727,  when  he 
assumed  charge  of  the  obscure  parish  at  Wroote,  which 
formed  a  part  of  the  living.  In  this  lonely  hamlet  of  the  fen- 
lands,  surrounded  by  bogs  and  tenanted  by  a  hopeless  peas- 
antry, he  spent  the  next  two  years  and  three  months.  His 
ministrations  were  addressed  to  "unpolished  wights"  as 
"impervious  as  stones,"  and  the  innate  aristocracy  of  the 
Wesley s,  which  denoted,  not  a  class,  but  a  creed,  was  exhib- 
ited toward  these  stupid  parishioners  both  by  John  and 
by  his  lively  sister  Hetty.  Few  details  of  his  curacy  are 
available,  and  those  that  are  have  no  particular  interest. 
It  was  evident  he  did  not  then  possess  the  secret  of  that 
marvellous  power  which  enabled  him  to  kindle  an  un- 
paralleled enthusiasm  in  town  and  hamlet  when  he  rode  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  three  kingdoms  during  later  days. 
He  tells  us,  "  I  preached  much,  but  saw  no  fruit  of  my  labor. 
Indeed,  it  could  not  be  that  I  should ;  for  I  neither  laid  the 
foundation  of  repentance,  nor  of  believing  the  Gospel; 
taking  it  for  granted  that  all  to  whom  I  preached  were 
believers,  and  that  many  of  them  needed  no  repentance."  ^ 
His  relaxation  was  found  at  Epworth,  where  a  renewed 
intercourse  with  the  family  rendered  the  tedium  of  his  un- 
profitable days  less  irksome.  While  in  the  disenchanting 
hermitage  of  Wroote,  and  probably  when  he  began  to  feel 
that  distaste  for  the  limitations  of  parochial  work  which  he 

•  L.  Tyerman  :   "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  :   Vol.  I,  p.  57, 


JOHN   WESLEY  199 

always  retained,  he  reverted  to  his  rehgious  meditations. 
William  Law's  "Serious  Call,"  to  which  later  references 
will  be  made,  was  published  in  1728,  and  shortly  afterwards 
Wesley  obtained  the  volume  and  read  it  with  eagerness. 
It  is  notable  for  its  religious  fervor  and  for  the  insight  and 
skill  of  its  contrast  between  the  life  of  the  flesh  and  the  life 
of  the  spirit  —  qualities  the  more  admirable  when  the  gen- 
eral lukewarmness  and  formalism  of  eighteenth  century  de- 
votional literature  are  recalled.  Law's  book  followed  no 
contemporary  models.  It  ploughed  up  new  ground,  and 
restored  to  an  age  of  barrenness  in  religion,  to  a  church 
that  had  become  a  mere  adjunct  of  public  life  and  which 
confounded  the  Body  of  Christ  with  the  Anglican  Estab- 
lishment, and  to  a  Puritanism  submerged  in  Socinian  the- 
ology, some  forgotten  ideals  of  Evangelical  Christianity. 
The  writer's  sway  was  evidenced  by  the  thoroughly  appre- 
ciative tributes  of  leading  minds  far  different  from  his 
own.  He  lived  with  the  Gibbons  at  Putney,  near  Lon- 
don, where  he  acted  as  tutor  to  the  father  of  the  histo- 
rian. A  rubicund  man,  jovial  in  appearance.  Law  gave 
little  indication  of  the  devotee  and  the  philosopher,  yet 
such  he  was,  and  one  of  the  very  few  who  then  bestowed 
specific  attention  upon  religious  problems.  His  discussion 
of  these  was  sympathetic  and  illuminating,  and  many  who 
were  troubled  with  spiritual  or  doctrinal  difficulties  resorted 
to  him  for  help. 

The  Wesleys,  John  and  Charles,  valued  his  counsel  so 
highly  that  on  several  occasions  they  walked  from  Oxford 
to  London  to  obtain  it.  After  John's  unseemly  quarrel  with 
Law  the  latter  remarked,  "I  was  once  a  kind  of  oracle  to 
Mr.  Wesley,"  and  at  least  one  saying  of  the  oracle  was 
fastened  in  the  recollection  of  the  younger  man :  "  We 
shall  do  well  to  aim  at  the  highest  degrees  of  perfection  if 
we  may  thereby  attain  at  least  to  mediocrity,"  —  a  remark 
destined  to  accelerate  that  deeper  belief  in  the  divine  possi- 
bilities of  human  nature  which  Wesley  did  much  to  implant. 


200      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

"If  some  persons,"  wrote  Law,  "should  unite  themselves  in 
little  societies  professing  voluntary  poverty,  retirement,  and 
devotion,  that  some  might  be  relieved  in  their  charities,  and 
all  be  benefited  by  their  example,  such  persons  would  be  so 
far  from  being  chargeable  with  any  superstition  that  they 
might  be  justly  said  to  restore  that  piety  which  was  the  boast 
and  glory  of  the  Church  when  its  greatest  men  were  alive.^ 
The  early  Franciscans  might  have  been  the  inspiration  of 
this  statement,  which  flatly  contradicted  the  grosser  ideals 
of  Hanoverian  Protestantism.  It  was  not  by  any  means 
Law's  greatest  conception,  but  certainly  it  was  reflected  in 
Wesley's  conduct  and  in  that  of  the  Holy  Club,  to  say 
nothing  of  its  palpable  effect  upon  the  life  of  Evangelical 
Methodism.^ 

IV 

Charles  Wesley,  who  was  elected  a  student  of  Christ 
Church,  Oxford,  from  Westminster  School,  about  the  same 
time  that  John  became  fellow  of  Lincoln,  was  the  more  san- 
guine and  emotional  of  the  two  brothers.  His  affectionate 
disposition  was  instanced  by  his  refusal  to  leave  his  parents 
when  Mr.  Garret  Wesley,  an  Irish  gentleman  of  fortune 
who  was  in  no  wise  related  to  the  family,  offered  to 
adopt  him  as  his  heir.  The  individual  who  accepted  the 
offer,  one  Richard  Colley,  assumed  his  benefactor's  name 
and  became  the  grandfather  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington, 
who  appears  in  the  army  list  of  1800  as  Arthur  Wesley. 
During  his  residence  at  Oxford,  Charles  indulged  buoyant 
habits  which,  although  harmless,  were  not  conducive  to 
sudden  and  serious  changes,  and  he  resented  John's  over- 
tures in  behalf  of  ascetical  piety  by  impatiently  declining 
to  become  a  saint  all  at  once.  But  this  mood  soon  passed, 
and  his  letters  during  his  brother's  sojourn  at  Wroote  showed 

1  Julia  Wedgwood:  "John  Wesley  and  the  Evangelical  Reaction  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century"  ;   p.  39. 

^  The  best  account  of  Law  can  be  found  in  Canon  Overton's  volume  on 
the  Non-Jurors. 


JOHN   WESLEY  201 

that  habitual  deference  to  John's  superior  judgment  which 
nothing  could  disturb  in  Charles  except  his  pronounced 
Anglicanism.  He  now  began  to  shun  his  former  com- 
panions, communicated  weekly  in  the  college  chapel,  and 
persuaded  a  friend  whom  he  had  reclaimed  from  doubtful 
society  to  do  likewise.  This  was  the  germ  of  the  fellowship 
of  Oxford  Methodism  which  Charles  instituted  and  John 
directed.  The  latter  states  that  "in  November,  1729,  four 
young  gentlemen  of  Oxford,  Mr.  John  Wesley,  Fellow  of 
Lincoln  College,  Mr.  Charles  Wesley,  Student  at  Christ 
Church,  Mr,  Morgan,  Commoner  of  Christ  Church,  and 
Mr.  Kirkham,  of  Merton  College,  began  to  spend  some 
evenings  a  week  reading,  chiefly  the  Greek  Testament." 
To  these  were  subsequently  added  among  others  George 
Whitefield,  John  Clayton,  Benjamin  Ingham,  John  White- 
lamb,  Westley  Hall,  John  Gambold,  and  James  Hervey, 
the  author  of  "Theron  and  Aspasio"  and  "Meditations 
among  the  Tombs."  The  friendships  then  begun  were 
afterwards  ended  by  death  or  separation  or  dissimilar  views. 
Clayton,  the  Jacobite  and  High  Church  rector  of  Manchester, 
eventually  shunned  the  Wesleys ;  Hervey  opposed  them  in 
his  writings ;  Ingham  forsook  them ;  Gambold  avowed  he 
was  ashamed  of  his  youthful  relation  with  them  ;  and  White- 
field,  after  being  their  colleague  in  labor  and  persecution, 
was  for  a  time  alienated  from  them  by  doctrinal  differences. 
In  their  college  days  they  were  a  harmonious  group  of 
kindred  souls,  and  when  in  1729  Wesley,  at  the  request  of 
Dr.  Morley,  the  rector  of  Lincoln,  resumed  his  residence 
as  fellow  of  the  College,  he  at  once  became  the  "curator  of 
the  Holy  Club."  The  wicked  wit  of  the  University  sporting 
fraternity  was  spent  in  vain  upon  these  "  crackbrained 
enthusiasts,"  Behind  John  and  Charles  stood  the  rector 
of  Epworth  and  his  wife,  who  advised  them  "in  all  things 
to  endeavor  to  act  upon  principle,"  and  not  to  "live  like 
the  rest  of  mankind  who  pass  through  the  world  like  straws 
upon  a  river,"     Nothing  was  further  from  their  purpose; 


202   THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

the  foremost  member  of  the  band  never  knew  the  meaning 
of  retreat,  and  until  he  left  Oxford  in  1735,  John  remained 
the  controlling  spirit  of  the  organization.  Wesley's  pre- 
dominance in  a  group  which  included  Hervey,  Clayton, 
and  Whitefield,  was  an  indication  of  his  gifts  as  a  leader 
of  men.  The  Club  flourished  or  declined  according  as  he 
was  present  or  absent;  its  permanent  adherents  were  less 
numerous  than  the  timid  backsliders  who  could  not  en- 
dure the  obloquy  which  membership  entailed.  All  alike 
were  tenacious  of  order;  scrupulously  observant  of  the 
statutes  of  the  University  and  the  ordinances  of  the 
Church.  Their  community  life  and  frugality  afforded  a 
surplus  from  their  united  incomes  which  they  devoted  to 
the  relief  of  the  poor  and  of  prisoners.  Regular  seasons  for 
prayer  and  fasting  were  observed,  and  frequent  attendance 
on  the  Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  with  other  means 
of  grace  and  self-denial,  was  made  obligatory.  A  system- 
atic visitation  of  the  slums  and  jails  of  Oxford  and  its 
surrounding  villages  was  undertaken  at  the  instance  of  Wil- 
liam Morgan.  Neglected  children  were  instructed  in  the 
Bible ;  debtors  confined  in  the  "Bocardo"  ^  and  felons  under 
sentence  of  death  received  the  consolations  of  religion. 
Upon  Wesley's  solicitation,  prompted  by  his  father's  advice, 
the  bishop  of  the  diocese  gave  his  approval  to  these  works 
of  mercy  and  charity,  and  a  few  of  the  clergy  followed  his 
example. 

But  such  thirteenth  century  practices  were  bound  to  meet 
the  censure  of  a  pleasure-loving  generation.  Fogg's  Weekly 
Journal  protested  against  the  presence  of  these  sons  of 
sorrow  who  had  committed  themselves  to  an  absurd  per- 
petual melancholy  designed  to  make  the  whole  place  a 
monastery.     While  they  passed  for  religious  persons  and  men 

*  The  "Bocardo"  was  a  prison  over  the  North  Gate  of  the  city  on  what 
is  now  known  as  Cornmarket  Street.  It  may  have  been  so  named  from  the 
form  of  syllogism  called  Bocardo,  which  presented  certain  logical  difficul- 
ties ;  or  again,  from  Brocardia,  a  legal  term  signifying  a  contentious  and 
difficult  matter. 


JOHN   WESLEY  203 

of  extraordinary  parts  among  themselves,  to  outsiders  they 
appeared  as  madmen  and  fools.  The  galled  jade  winced; 
careless  professors  and  undergraduates  of  open  moral  lassi- 
tude were  incensed  by  this  return  to  the  sacrificial  devotion 
of  typical  Christianity,  and  their  contempt  was  poured 
upon  a  few  fellow  members  of  the  University  whose  offense 
lay  in  their  regularity  and  piety.  Efforts  were  made  to 
breed  dissensions  among  them;  abuse  and  calumniation 
raged  apace.  Nicknames  were  plentiful;  in  addition  to 
those  already  given,  these  young  men  were  known  as  Bible 
Bigots,  Bible  Moths,  Sacramentarians,  and  Methodists. 
The  last  term  was  supposed  by  Wesley  to  have  been  derived 
from  Bentley's  allusion  to  the  Methodici,  as  opposed  to  the 
Empirics,  two  ancient  rival  schools  of  medicine.  This  was 
far-fetched;  the  waggish  student  with  whom  the  epithet 
probably  originated  may  have  found  the  name  of  the  largest 
English-speaking  Protestant  Church  among  the  sectarian 
disputes  of  the  previous  century.  In  1638  a  sermon  preached 
at  Lambeth  contained  the  following  passage,  "Where  are 
now  our  Anabaptists  and  plain  pack-staff  Methodists,  who 
esteem  all  flowers  of  rhetoric  in  sermons  no  better  than 
stinking  weeds?"  and  in  1693  a  pamphlet  was  published  en- 
titled, "  A  War  among  the  Angels  of  the  Churches ;  wherein 
is  shewed  the  Principles  of  the  New  Methodists  in  the 
Great  Point  of  Justification."  ^  When  applied  to  the 
Oxford  men  who  dared  to  be  singular,  the  appellation,  if  not 
new,  was  aptly  descriptive ;  it  at  once  clung  to  them,  and 
was  afterwards  bestowed  on  the  Church  which  inherited 
some  of  their  characteristics.^ 

If  Wesley  needed  further  support,  the  rector  of  Epworth 
certainly  gave  it.  He  wrote  in  ringing  words  to  his  sons, 
"  Go  on,  then,  in  God's  name,  in  the  path  in  which  the  Saviour 
has  directed  you  and  that  track  wherein  your  father  went 

*  L.  Tyerman :    "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  67. 
^  For  a  full  discussion  of  the  term  see  the  Oxford  English  Dictionary ; 
also  H.  B.  Workman's  "Handbook  on  Methodism." 


204      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

before  you."  Their  brother  Samuel  interposed  a  mild  ob- 
jection to  their  "  being  called  a  Club,  a  name  calculated  to  do 
mischief."  "But,"  he  continued,  "the  other  charges  of 
enthusiasm  can  weigh  with  none  but  such  as  drink  away 
their  senses."  He  lived  to  make  similar  charges  himself 
when  Methodism  shook  off  its  academic  chains  and  essayed 
the  conquest  of  a  wider  field.  There  was  nothing  in  the 
bearing  of  Wesley  and  his  friends  leaning  toward  sensa- 
tionalism, neither  were  they  whimsical  nor  unnecessarily 
precise.  They  looked  inwardly  and  outwardly  with  a  gaze 
which  was  pure  and  intent  on  increased  purity.  Wesley's 
defense  of  their  habits  was  almost  invariably  wise,  calm 
in  tone,  and  modest  in  statement.  His  presentation  of 
the  case  was  unmarred  by  any  arrogant  assumptions,  and 
showed  he  was  sincerely  convinced  that  the  renunciations 
they  made  were  essential  to  Christian  character.  Yet  St. 
Francis  himself  could  scarcely  have  surpassed  his  assevera- 
tion that  no  man  was  in  a  state  of  salvation  until  he  was 
contemned  by  the  world,  and  unfortunately  the  prevailing 
attitude  toward  those  who  sought  to  exemplify  their  faith 
in  deeds  largely  confirmed  his  opinion. 

This  earlier  Oxford  movement  made  no  impression  on  the 
University  when  compared  with  that  led  a  hundred  years 
later  by  Rose,  Keble,  Pusey,  Hurrell  Froude,  and  Newman. 
Some  of  its  followers,  as  already  observed,  became  the 
censors  of  the  later  Methodism  of  which  it  was  a  foretoken 
rather  than  a  cause.  Indeed,  but  for  Whitefield  and  the 
Wesleys,  Oxford  Methodism  would  have  been  no  more 
than  an  ephemeral  outburst  of  pious  devotion ;  an  earnest 
inquiry  for  the  heart  of  the  Gospel  rather  than  a  mani- 
festation of  the  Gospel's  subduing  grace.  Its  isolation  and 
environment  would  have  successfully  impeded  any  propa- 
ganda, since  Oxford  at  that  time  could  scarcely  maintain, 
far  less  originate,  vitality  in  morals  or  religion.  Nor  were 
the  few  who  enlisted  in  the  premature  attempt  as  yet 
equipped  for  a  crusade  in  behalf  of  spiritual  regeneration. 


JOHN   WESLEY  205 

In  fact,  the  majority  retained  throughout  life  the  sense  of 
clerical  separatism  and  excessive  deference  to  churchly 
authority  which  formed  an  effective  barrier  between  them 
and  democracy.  The  enterprise  was  commendable  because 
it  rebuked  a  moribund  University.  Yet  it  proved  that 
such  religious  efforts,  although  taking  their  rise  in  centers 
of  learning,  must  find  a  speedy  outlet  in  the  unhampered 
service  of  the  people,  or  dwindle  and  perish  at  the  source. 
The  venerable  rector  of  Epworth  was  now  approaching 
the  end  of  his  ministry,  and  in  January,  1735,  he  suggested 
to  John  the  propriety  of  becoming  his  successor.  In  a 
later  letter  he  put  the  matter  more  definitely  and  urged 
it  as  a  personal  request.  Wesley's  reply  revealed  his  need 
of  emancipation  from  the  notion  that  he  was  only  safe  when 
sequestered.  He  gave  a  lengthy  but  irrelevant  list  of  reasons 
for  remaining  where  he  was,  their  burden  being  that  he  was 
determined  to  shun  the  world  and  its  distracting  activities, 
in  order  that  he  might  preserve  intellectual  growth  from  the 
blight  of  material  concerns,  and  shield  religious  contem- 
plation from  the  assailments  of  hypocrisy  or  wickedness. 
He  could  be  holier  in  Oxford,  he  asserted,  than  anywhere 
else.  Mingled  with  this  ambition  was  his  love  for  the 
University,  a  sentiment  not  readily  appraised  by  those  who 
have  not  felt  its  force.  His  father  was  bewildered  by  the 
scruples  John  raised,  and  his  reply  seems  to  have  removed 
them.  "It  is  not  dear  self,"  he  wrote,  with  mature  wisdom, 
"  but  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  different  degrees  of  promoting 
it,  which  should  be  our  main  consideration  and  direction 
in  the  choice  of  any  course  of  life";  and  again,  "I  cannot 
allow  austerity,  or  fasting,  considered  by  themselves,  to  be 
proper  acts  of  holiness,  nor  am  I  for  a  solitary  life.  God 
made  us  for  a  social  life ;  we  are  not  to  bury  our  talent ; 
we  are  to  let  our  light  shine  before  men,  and  that  not  merely 
through  the  chinks  of  a  bushel  for  fear  the  wind  should 
blow  it  out."  ^     This  was  a  healthy  breeze  from  the  fen 

>  C.  T.  Winchester:    "The  Life  of  John  Wesley"  ;   p.  39. 


206   THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

country  which  John's  enervating  atmosphere  sorely  needed, 
and  after  further  discussion  he  made  a  belated  and  unsuc- 
cessful application  for  the  Epworth  living. 

The  rector  died  on  April  25,  1735,  joyous  and  hopeful 
to  the  last.  Thirty-eight  of  the  forty-six  years  of  his  pas- 
torate had  been  spent  in  the  one  parish,  and  he  took  leave  of 
it  and  of  his  dear  ones  with  a  holy  confidence  which  his 
son  Charles,  who  was  with  him  at  the  time  of  his  decease, 
must  have  had  in  mind  when  he  composed  some  of  his 
matchless  hymns  upon  the  triumph  of  the  saints  in  their 
mortal  hour.  John  was  still  bent  on  "saving  his  own  soul," 
and  this  resolution  dictated  his  acceptance  of  an  invitation 
to  establish  a  mission  in  Georgia.  The  longed-for  conscious- 
ness of  his  personal  relation  to  God  through  Christ  Jesus, 
which  he  had  hitherto  failed  to  gain,  might,  he  thought,  be 
achieved  by  his  consecration  to  the  task  of  converting  the 
Indians.  He  set  everything  else  aside  for  the  primitive  and 
unpromising  conditions  of  a  recently  founded  settlement  in 
the  New  World.  As  Dr.  Workman  pithily  observes,  "In 
words  that  would  have  charmed  a  Rousseau  he  dreamed  of 
a  return  to  nature  as  a  return  to  grace,"  "I  cannot  hope," 
said  Wesley,  "to  attain  the  same  degree  of  holiness  here 
which  I  may  attain  there."  Charles  shared  his  sentiments 
and  joined  his  mission,  and  also  agreed  with  John's  un- 
sophisticated ideas  concerning  the  innate  virtues  of  the 
Indians  among  whom  they  proposed  to  dwell.  Having 
obtained  their  widowed  mother's  consent  and  blessing,  they 
sailed  for  Georgia  in  the  month  of  October,  1735,  accom- 
panied by  Benjamin  Ingham,  a  member  of  the  Holy  Club, 
and  Charles  Delamotte,  a  friend  and  also  an  Oxford  man. 

General  Oglethorpe,  the  founder  and  first  governor  of 
Georgia,  the  youngest  of  the  English  colonies  in  North 
America,  was  the  son  of  Sir  Theophilus  Oglethorpe  of  Godal- 
ming  in  Surrey.  His  varied  career  was  full  of  interesting 
events  as  a  soldier,  legislator,  pioneer,  philanthropist,  and 
patron  of  literature.     Dr.  Johnson  was  his  intimate  friend,  and 


JOHN   WESLEY  207 

Hannah  More,  the  high  priestess  of  the  EvangeUcals,  spoke 
of  Oglethorpe  as  "a  deUghtful  old  beau."  Touched  by  the 
miseries  of  the  English  prisoners  for  debt  he  determined  to 
give  the  unfortunate  inmates  of  the  Fleet  and  the  Marshalsea 
another  opportunity  beyond  the  seas.  He  required  a  chap- 
lain for  the  expedition  who  would  care  both  for  the  whites 
of  the  proposed  colony  and  for  the  Indians.  Dr.  Burton  of 
Corpus  Christi  College  recommended  John  Wesley  for  the 
post.  The  Epworth  family  was  already  known  to  the  Gen- 
eral; he  had  been  the  largest  subscriber  to  the  rector's 
volume  on  Job,  and  by  this  and  other  timely  assistance 
had  won  the  author's  affectionate  gratitude,  who  declared 
that  had  he  been  a  younger  man  he  would  have  joined 
Oglethorpe's  enterprise.  Under  these  favorable  circum- 
stances John  and  Charles  were  offered  the  position.  Their 
acceptance  was  actuated  by  their  desire  for  personal  sanctity, 
and  by  a  solicitude  for  the  cure  of  souls  and  the  extension 
of  God's  kingdom. 

Other  clergymen  had  anticipated  their  missionary  effort; 
their  father,  as  we  have  noted,  had  his  dreams  of  a  more 
aggressive  Christianity  in  foreign  parts ;  and  Bishop  George 
Berkeley  preceded  them  and  their  comrades  in  his  attempt 
to  establish  the  Gospel  among  the  people  of  Bermuda,  leav- 
ing an  attractive  position  in  England  only  to  return  a  dis- 
illusioned and  defeated  man.  The  college  he  had  planned 
was  still  unbuilt,  and  Oglethorpe  obtained  his  consent  to 
petition  Parliament  that  the  funds  assigned  for  its  erection 
should  be  diverted  to  the  Georgian  scheme.  The  Society 
for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  also  supported  the  Gen- 
eral's undertaking,  and  public  grants  and  private  gifts  were 
contributed  toward  the  necessary  expenses.  During  the 
westward  voyage  of  the  Simmonds  the  Oxford  men  faith- 
fully observed  their  religious  exercises,  and  when  some  of 
the  ship's  officers  took  umbrage  at  this  they  drew  upon 
themselves  a  severe  rebuke  from  Oglethorpe.  Among  the 
passengers   were   twenty-six   Moravians,   headed    by  their 


208      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

bishop,  David  Nitschmann,  who  were  about  to  join  their 
brethren  already  settled  in  Georgia.  Their  acquaintance 
with  Wesley  and  his  companions  was  fraught  with  impor- 
tant consequences,  which  necessitate  a  brief  account  of  the 
Church  they  represented. 

Count  Zinzendorf  avowed  it  had  not  been  founded  by 
him,  but  was  "  the  most  ancient  of  the  Protestant  Churches, 
if  not  their  common  mother,"  since  its  origin  dated  from  the 
movement  of  John  Hus  in  the  early  fifteenth  century.  After 
numerous  vicissitudes  the  Brethren,  as  they  called  them- 
selves, attained  a  numerical  growth  which  in  1609  included 
half  the  Protestants  of  Bohemia  and  more  than  half  those 
of  Moravia.  But  the  Thirty  Years'  War  practically  abol- 
ished their  congregations,  and  for  a  century  afterwards  they 
were  an  almost  extinct  body.  The  renowned  bishop,  John 
Amos  Comenius,  whose  work,  "The  Great  Didactic,"  is 
still  one  of  the  textbooks  of  historical  education,  had  pre- 
served, however,  the  episcopal  succession  and  discipline,  and 
after  decimating  persecutions  in  Moravia  the  Church  was 
resuscitated  in  Germany.  Its  members,  descendants  of 
former  German  immigrants,  retreated  to  the  Fatherland, 
crossing  the  border  into  Saxony,  and  were  received  at  Herrn- 
hut  ^  by  Count  Zinzendorf,  who  had  to  satisfy  the  State 
government  that  the  community  could  be  brought  under 
the  conditions  of  the  peace  of  Augsburg,  and  also  quiet  the 
misgivings  and  suspicions  of  the  Lutheran  clergy.  The 
refugees  belonged  to  more  than  one  sect ;  oppressions 
had  made  them  cling  pertinaciously  to  small  differences  of 
belief,  worship,  and  polity,  and  it  was  with  the  utmost  diflB- 
culty  that  the  Count  induced  them  to  live  together  harmo- 
niously. Despite  his  high  personal  example  and  tireless 
energy,  their  conduct  was  so  fanatical  that  they  combined 
in  his  own  house  to  denounce  Zinzendorf  as  the  Beast  of 

'  Zinzendorf  offered  them  an  asylum  on  his  estate  of  Berthelsdorf, 
where  he  built  for  them  the  village  of  Herrnhut  (the  Lord's  keeping).  The 
refugees  came  thither  in  various  groups  between  1722  and  1732. 


JOHN   WESLEY  209 

the  Apocalypse,  and  his  helper  Rothe  as  the  False  Prophet. 
Presently  a  better  temper  obtained,  and  they  conformed  to 
the  Count's  wishes.  Instead  of  reviving  Moravian  orders 
they  professed  themselves  as  pietistic  Lutherans,  and 
attended  the  services  of  the  parish  church.  But  after  an 
extraordinary  unifying  experience  at  a  Communion  Service 
on  August  13,  1727,  they  renewed  their  allegiance  to  Mora- 
vianism,  and  that  date  has  since  been  celebrated  as  its 
birthday. 

Two  conflicting  parties  were  now  found  among  them. 
The  first  regarded  Zinzendorf  as  their  head,  and  built  their 
settlements  on  the  estates  of  friendly  noblemen,  where  they 
lived  a  retired  life  and  enriched  the  spirituality  of  "the 
scattered"  in  the  Church  at  large  without  attempting  to 
proselytize.  The  second  was  recognized  in  1749  by  the 
British  Parliament  as  an  ancient  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  and  played  a  significant  part  in  the  religious  revival 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  importance  of  the  Moravians 
must  be  measured  by  their  influence  upon  Christendom  at 
large,  and  upon  such  individuals  as  the  Wesleys,  Schleier- 
macher,  and,  in  a  measure,  Goethe.  Their  contribution  to 
the  missionary  spirit  of  Protestantism  is  notable  for  the 
fact  that  they  were  the  first  to  revive  the  duty  of  the 
Church  to  present  the  Gospel  to  all  nations.  This  achieve- 
ment, together  with  their  blameless  conduct,  has  given  them 
an  ascendency  in  Europe  and  America  altogether  out  of 
proportion  to  their  numbers,  which,  as  late  as  1909,  showed 
no  more  than  444  congregations  with  62,096  communicants. 

Their  first  appearance  in  England  dates  from  the  early 
seventeenth  century,  when,  during  the  first  stages  of  the 
Thirty  Years'  War  the  Bohemian  Protestants  were  routed 
at  the  battle  of  White  Hill,  fought  in  1620,  and  the  Brethren, 
driven  from  their  homes,  took  refuge  in  various  countries.^ 
Their  simplicity  and  fraternity,  expressed  in  a  social  life 
of    ordered    piety,    were    singularly    attractive ;    and    they 

•  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  11th  Edition,  Article  on  The  Moravians. 
P 


210      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

made  a  deep  impression  on  devout  and  meditative  people 
weary  of  a  hard  and  superficial  age.  Julia  Wedgwood  fit- 
tingly speaks  of  the  "cool  mysticism  of  these  monks  of 
Protestantism"  which  "afforded  a  welcome  shade  from  the 
prosaic  aridity  of  rationalism."  ^ 

During  the  tedious  voyage  of  the  Simmonds,  Wesley  had 
ample  opportunity  for  the  close  observation  of  a  people 
whose  Christianity  was  both  unusual  and  exemplary. 
Their  patient  willingness  to  serve  the  sick,  their  humility, 
untainted  by  self-consciousness,  and  their  tranquil  behavior 
during  the  fierce  storms  which  swept  the  Atlantic,  won 
his  respect  and  confidence.  "Were  you  not  afraid?"  he 
queried,  after  a  hurricane.  "I  thank  God,  no,"  replied 
the  one  addressed.  This  insensibility  to  the  peril  of  the 
ocean,  which  was  not  permitted  to  interrupt  their  stated 
worship,  aroused  Wesley's  curiosity  and  his  repeated  refer- 
ences to  the  Moravians  revealed  his  interest  in  them  and 
their  affairs.  After  landing  at  Savannah,  he  sought  them 
out  again,  and  asked  one  of  their  elders,  August  Gottlieb 
Spangenberg,  to  advise  with  him  about  his  new  field.  "  Have 
you,"  said  Spangenberg,  "  the  witness  within  yourself  ?  Does 
the  Spirit  of  God  bear  witness  with  your  spirit  that  you  are 
a  child  of  God?"  Wesley  faltered  before  these  pertinent 
inquiries,  whereupon  the  Moravian  elder  pushed  them  home. 
"Do  you  know  Jesus  Christ?"  he  continued.  "I  know  that 
He  is  the  Saviour  of  the  World,"  rejoined  Wesley.  "True, 
but  do  you  know  He  has  saved  you ? "  "I  hope  He  has  died 
to  save  me,"  was  the  hesitating  answer.  "Do  you  know 
yourself?"  his  inquisitor  demanded.  Wesley  was  non- 
plused by  this  pointed  address,  couched  in  terms  afterwards 
familiar  enough,  but  which  were  then  strange  to  him.  He 
could  only  express  a  faint  affirmative,  and  subsequently 
doubted  whether  he  was  justified  even  in  that.  He  lived  for 
a  time  with  the  Brethren,  and  discovered  in  them  other 

'  "John  Wesley  and  the  Evangelical  Reaction  of  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury" ;   p.  94. 


JOHN   WESLEY  211 

vital  elements  of  religion  till  then  foreign  to  his  conceptions. 
Their  election  and  ordination  of  a  bishop  prompted  the  fol- 
lowing reflection :  "  The  great  simplicity,  as  well  as  solem- 
nity, of  the  whole,  almost  made  me  forget  the  seventeen 
hundred  years  between,  and  imagine  myself  in  one  of  those 
assemblies  where  form  and  state  were  not,  but  Paul  the  tent- 
maker  or  Peter  the  fisherman  presided,  yet  with  the  demon- 
stration of  the  Spirit  and  of  power."  ^  It  was  indeed  a 
far  cry  from  stately  Oxford  and  the  latitudinarian  Georgian 
clergy  to  these  few  radiant  souls  on  a  lonely  shore  where 
the  light  of  a  hitherto  unsuspected  phase  of  Christian  ex- 
perience began  to  play  upon  Wesley's  sacramentarian- 
ism.  He  did  not  yield  to  it,  however,  without  a  severe 
and  prolonged  struggle,  and  he  was  never  more  active  as  a 
champion  of  ecclesiastical  formalism  than  during  his  sojourn 
at  Savannah,  which  lasted  from  February  5,  1736,  until 
December  2,  1737.  But  he  had  seen,  if  only  as  through  a 
glass  darkly,  the  great  truth  that  the  divine  order  is  not 
perfectly  fulfilled  till  the  soul  has  believed,  not  because  of 
indirect  evidence,  but  because  of  its  regenerating  contact 
with  the  living  Christ.  And  that  glimpse  must  be  remem- 
bered by  those  who  would  understand  Wesley's  career. 

1  "The  Journal  of  John  Wesley";   edited  by  Rev.  Nehemiah  Curnock, 
Vol.  I,  p.  170. 


CHAPTER  VI 
DARKNESS  AND  DAWN 


213 


Oft  when  the  Word  is  on  me  to  deHver, 
Lifts  the  illusion,  and  the  truth  lies  bare : 
Desert  or  throng,  the  city  or  the  river. 
Melts  in  a  lucid  Paradise  of  air,  — 

Only  like  souls  I  see  the  folk  thereunder, 

Bound  who  should  conquer,  slaves  who  should  be  kings,  — 

Hearing  their  one  hope  with  an  empty  wonder, 

Sadly  contented  in  a  show  of  things ;  — 

Then  with  a  rush  the  intolerable  craving 
Shivers  throughout  me  like  a  trumpet  call,  — 
Oh  to  save  these !  to  perish  for  their  saving. 
Die  for  their  life,  be  offered  for  them  all  I 

Give  me  a  voice,  a  cry,  and  a  complaining,  — 

Oh  let  my  sound  be  stormy  in  their  ears ! 

Throat  that  woidd  shout  but  cannot  stay  for  straining, 

Eyes  that  would  weep  but  cannot  wait  for  tears. 

Quick  in  a  moment,  infinite  for  ever, 
Send  an  arousal  better  than  I  pray, 
Give  me  a  grace  upon  the  faint  endeavor, 
Souls  for  my  hire  and  Pentecost  to-day  I 

F.  W.  H.  Myers  :  Saint  Paul,  XVII  and  XX. 


214 


CHAPTER   VI 

DAKKNESS   AND   DAWN 

Wesley  in  Georgia  —  Religious  condition  of  the  settlers  —  Charles 
returns  to  England — Miss  Hopkey  —  Williamson's  suit  against  Wesley 
— Wesley's  retiu-n  to  England — Effect  of  Georgia  mission  on  his  later 
development  —  Peter  Bohler  —  Wesley's  dispute  with  William  Law 
—  His  conversion  —  Its  results  —  Social  condition  of  England  in  the 
eighteenth  century  —  The  effect  of  Methodism  on  English  national 
life. 


Wesley's  residence  in  Georgia  is  described  at  length  in 
the  new  edition  of  his  Journal,  for  which  the  Christian  Church 
is  under  lasting  obligation  to  its  painstaking  editor,  the 
Reverend  Nehemiah  Curnock.^  It  gives  a  graphic  picture 
of  the  social  and  religious  conditions  of  the  colony  which 
have  only  to  be  comprehended  to  explain  Wesley's  compara- 
tive failure  there  :  indeed,  the  wonder  is  that  he  did  any  good 
whatever  for  so  motley  and  turbulent  a  throng.  It  is  note- 
worthy that  the  Brethren  seem  to  have  been  equally  unsuc- 
cessful ;  despite  their  evangelical  teaching  they  were  unable 
to  overcome  the  indifference  and  reserve  of  the  emigrants, 
whose  scanty  numbers  embraced  various  nationalities  and 
beliefs,  with  few  things  in  common  except  ignorance  and 
prejudice.  The  Moravians  and  Salzburgers  did  not  need 
Wesley's  oversight,  having  their  own  Bishop  Nitschmann. 
The  Scotch  Highlanders  clung  to  their  priestless  worship, 
and  offended  Wesley's  sense  of  decorum  by  assembling  in  a 
barn.  French  Huguenots,  Italian  Waldenses,  and  Spanish 
Jews  formed  the  fringe  of  a  population  of  broken  Englishmen, 
including  insolvent  debtors  and  disappointed  adventurers,  of 

^Died,  November  1,  1915. 
215 


216      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

some  of  whom  the  Motherland  was  well  rid,  whose  chief 
pursuits  were  found  in  the  ale-house  or  in  low  intrigues 
against  the  parson  who  denounced  rum  and  slavery.  Such 
parishioners  would  doubtless  have  afforded  a  more  moderate 
man  a  welcome  excuse  for  being  cautious  in  his  dealings  with 
them.  But  Oglethorpe  craved  Wesley's  aid,  and  he  aban- 
doned his  mission  to  the  Indians,  who  showed  no  propensity 
for  anything  better  than  tribal  wars  and  the  vicious  habits 
of  the  white  settlers,  that  he  might  enforce  upon  the  latter 
a  meticulous  code  of  ordinances  in  accordance  with  the 
literal  directions  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  His 
requirements  were  so  exacting  as  to  suggest  that  he  was  not 
altogether  assured  in  his  own  mind  of  their  legitimacy  or 
usefulness.  "He  that  believeth  shall  not  make  haste"; 
and  Wesley's  ardor  in  imposing  this  regimen,  which  he 
himself  observed  by  going  unshod,  reading  prayers  thrice 
every  day,  fasting,  communicating,  and  refusing  to  bury 
Dissenters,  or  baptize  children  save  by  triple  immersion, 
may  have  been  an  indication  of  the  secret  longings  of  a 
spirit  which  found  vent  but  not  satisfaction  in  the  minutiae 
of  punctilious  ecclesiasticism.  The  Moravians,  who  were 
also  in  that  Apostolical  Succession  which  he  held  necessary 
to  faith  and  order,  and  upon  which  he  believed  the  stability 
of  the  Church  and  the  Gospel  depended,  did  not  encourage 
his  sacerdotalism  nor  make  experiments  similar  to  those 
which  inevitably  led  to  his  disappointment.  Yet  they  lived 
in  the  strength  of  a  calm  and  constant  joy,  while  he,  ill  at 
ease  and  restless  in  spirit,  "drenched  his  flock  with  the 
physic  of  an  intolerant  discipline."  Many  rebelled  against 
his  lack  of  wisdom ;  others,  however,  disarmed  by  his  personal 
piety  and  his  incessant  labors  in  their  behalf,  at  length 
yielded  him  a  reluctant  support. 

Equally  tactless  was  Charles  Wesley's  connection  with 
the  mission.  During  a  six  months'  stay  at  Frederica,  a 
small  township  south  of  Savannah,  he  alienated  nearly 
everybody,  and  ended  by  quarreling  with  Oglethorpe,  where- 


JOHN  WESLEY  217 

upon  he  returned  home.  John's  disillusionment  was  now 
complete,  and  the  impending  hostility  between  him  and 
the  colonists  was  precipitated  by  his  love  affair  with  Miss 
Sophy  Hopkey.  This  young  lady  was  the  niece  and  ward  of 
Thomas  Causton,  the  principal  magistrate  of  Savannah, 
a  man  of  doubtful  antecedents,  and  of  an  overbearing  and 
boorish  disposition  which  attracted  to  him  acquaintances 
of  a  like  kind.  His  home  became  the  resort  of  dissolute 
characters,  and  afforded  little  protection  to  a  beautiful, 
modest,  and  affectionate  girl  of  eighteen.  One  of  her  uncle's 
boon  companions,  who  had  shortly  before  proposed  mar- 
riage to  her,  was  arrested  and  thrown  into  jail.  This 
humiliating  experience  drove  Miss  Hopkey  to  the  consola- 
tions of  religion,  and  her  friendship  with  Wesley  developed 
rapidly.  When  she  removed  to  Frederica  to  escape  the  Caus- 
tons  and  the  threats  of  her  imprisoned  admirer,  Wesley  fol- 
lowed and  begged  her  to  return.  His  persuasions,  coupled 
with  Oglethorpe's,  induced  her  to  do  so,  and  the  two  young 
people  made  the  six  days'  journey  back  to  Savannah  together. 
While  encamped  one  cold,  stormy  night  on  St.  Katherines 
Island,  Wesley,  moved  by  a  sudden  impulse,  earnestly  de- 
clared, "Miss  Sophy,  I  should  think  myself  happy  if  I  was 
to  spend  my  life  with  you,"  at  which  she  begged  him  not 
to  speak  to  her  again  "on  this  head,"  but  in  such  a  way  as 
to  indicate  that  the  declaration  was  not  distasteful  to  her. 
On  their  arrival  at  Savannah  she  spent  her  mornings  and 
evenings  with  Wesley,  the  Caustons,  who  regarded  the 
match  as  assured,  consenting  to  the  arrangement.  Devo- 
tional exercises  and  literary  studies  could  not  prevent  what 
Wesley  ingenuously  calls  "  such  intimacy  of  conversation  as 
ours  was."  Here  began  the  tragic  struggle  between  love 
and  duty,  the  alternate  phases  of  which  are  recorded  in  the 
Journal.  His  friends  Ingham  and  Delamotte  for  somewhat 
selfish  reasons  opposed  the  marriage,  and  after  the  former 
had  returned  home,  Delamotte  implored  Wesley  to  surren- 
der all  claims   to  the  lady  of  his  choice.     The  assertion 


218      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

that  the  Moravians  gave  such  advice  is  incorrect ;  indeed, 
Toltschig,  the  pastor,  astonished  the  despondent  lover  by 
declaring,  "I  see  no  reason  why  you  should  not  marry  her." 
The  affair  was  another  instance  of  that  witless  suscepti- 
bility to  feminine  society  which  Wesley  had  previously 
evinced  in  the  case  of  the  far  less  worthy  Mrs.  Hawkins, 
whom  he  met  on  shipboard.  Yet  while  his  heart  was  deeply 
affected,  his  sense  of  responsibility  to  the  ministry  and  his 
conviction  that  he  should  live  a  single  life  warred  against 
his  inclinations.  Miss  Hopkey  naturally  resented  his  vacil- 
lations, and  the  methods  he  adopted  to  reach  an  irrevocable 
decision  were  not  calculated  to  appease  her.  After  prayer 
Wesley  and  Delamotte  proceeded  to  a  solemn  casting  of  lots, 
when  the  latter  drew  the  paper  on  which  was  written  the 
last  alternative,  "  Think  no  more  of  it,"  and  Wesley  at  once 
accepted  this  as  a  divine  injunction  against  the  marriage. 

Such  talismanic  dealing  with  a  pure  and  natural  attach- 
ment was  its  own  condemnation.  Determined  as  he  was 
to  find  and  follow  the  Highest  Will  in  a  matter  so  important, 
Wesley's  ignorance  of  the  feminine  nature  and  his  repre- 
hensible habit  of  settling  questions  of  moment  in  a  hap- 
hazard way  were  responsible  for  the  unhappiness  which 
ensued.  Miss  Hopkey  was  by  far  the  most  suitable  woman 
he  could  have  chosen  for  his  wife,  and  probably  she  was  the 
only  woman  he  ever  really  loved.  He  was  then  thirty-three 
years  old,  and  when  unembarrassed  by  his  leanings  toward 
celibacy,  an  insistent  and  ardent  suitor.  She,  while  con- 
siderably his  junior,  was  unusually  mature  for  her  age,  and 
needed  the  help  and  guidance  such  a  husband  as  Wesley 
would  have  given.  Although  not  his  equal  in  education, 
she  surpassed  him  in  prudence  and  courage  under  difficult 
circumstances,  and  her  affectionate  disposition  warrants  the 
assumption  that,  had  he  formed  a  union  with  her,  he  would 
have  been  saved  from  the  domestic  wretchedness  to  which 
he  was  afterwards  subjected.  His  sentimentality  over- 
spread the  entire  proceedings  with  a  half-fabulous  tinge. 


JOHN   WESLEY  219 

The  credulity  he  displayed  in  arriving  at  his  decision  by  lot, 
a  trait  which  sometimes  impedes  reason  and  practicality  in 
one  who  is  known  as  a  master  of  men,  was  always  latent  in 
Wesley,  at  intervals  dimly  present,  and  occasionally  far  too 
active  for  his  good  or  for  the  good  of  others. 

The  sequel  of  this  unfortunate  incident  was  grievous 
enough.  Miss  Hopkey,  prompted  by  her  relatives,  accepted 
a  certain  Thomas  Williamson  as  her  prospective  husband, 
and,  much  to  Wesley's  distress,  became  his  wife  a  few  days 
after  the  separation  from  the  man  of  her  heart.  Her  decla- 
ration that  she  would  never  marry  was  thus  violated  by 
events  which  she  could  not  altogether  control ;  where- 
upon Wesley  began  to  act  in  a  manner  indicative  of  the 
feelings  of  the  injured  lover  who  was  also  a  domineering 
priest.  Williamson  was  naturally  unwilling  that  his  wife 
should  have  any  further  acquaintance  with  Wesley,  and 
would  not  allow  her  to  enter  the  parsonage.  Wesley,  on 
the  other  hand,  exhorted  ^er  to  continue  her  religious  duties, 
and  upon  her  failing  to  do  so  with  regularity,  proceeded  to 
rebuke  her.  On  the  strength  of  a  talebearer's  gossip  he 
further  upbraided  her;  and  at  length,  about  five  months 
after  her  marriage,  publicly  excluded  her  from  the  Lord's 
Table.  Her  husband,  justly  outraged  at  this  inexcusable 
action,  brought  suit  against  Wesley  for  defaming  her 
character.  The  malcontents  of  the  town,  with  Causton  as 
their  leader,  ranged  themselves  on  Williamson's  side  of  the 
quarrel,  and  desired  nothing  better  than  such  an  oppor- 
tunity for  getting  rid  of  a  pastor  who  had  frequently  offended 
them  for  righteousness'  sake.  However,  when  the  charges 
against  him  were  sifted  from  the  scandals  and  calumnies 
with  which  the  small  and  self-centered  community  abounded, 
no  case  was  left  against  Wesley.  He  had  acted  within  his 
clerical  rights,  although  in  such  a  way  as  to  impair  the  con- 
fidence of  the  best  people  of  the  settlement  in  his  motives, 
and  the  agitation  which  followed  ended  his  usefulness  in 
Georgia. 


220      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

Delamotte  agreed  with  him  that  his  best  course  was  to 
return  home,  and  accordingly  he  posted  a  notice  in  the 
public  square  of  Savannah  that  he  was  about  to  leave  the 
colony.  Mr.  Williamson  at  once  announced  that  he  had 
sued  Wesley  for  one  thousand  pounds  damages,  and  would 
prosecute  any  one  who  aided  his  escape.  The  magis- 
trates also  forbade  him  to  leave  until  the  case  had  been 
heard.  Wesley  reminded  them  that  he  had  attended  seven 
sessions  of  the  Court,  at  none  of  which  had  he  been 
allowed  to  answer  the  charges  against  him.  Nevertheless 
they  demanded  that  he  sign  a  bond,  pledging  himself, 
under  a  penalty  of  fifty  pounds,  to  appear  in  Court  when- 
ever required  to  do  so.  He  refused  to  give  either  bond  or 
bail,  and  the  magistrates  retaliated  by  ordering  the  officers 
of  the  law  to  prevent  his  departure.  These  measures  may 
have  been  a  mere  pretense,  but,  whether  seriously  intended 
or  not,  they  failed.  After  evening  prayers,  which  he  con- 
ducted publicly  before  going  to  the  boat,  Wesley,  accom- 
panied by  four  friendly  men,  set  out  for  Purrysburg, 
twenty  miles  down  the  river,  and  arrived  there  the  follow- 
ing morning.  From  Purrysburg  the  party  of  five  went  on 
foot  to  Port  Royal,  an  exhausting  journey  through  track- 
less forests  and  swamps.  From  Port  Royal  they  shipped 
to  Charlestown,  and  there  Wesley  embarked  for  England 
on  December  22,  1737. 

Such  were  some  of  the  main  factors  in  his  Georgian  prepa- 
ration for  a  greater  embassy.  When  the  day  of  his  mis- 
sion dawned,  he  observed,  "Many  reasons  I  have  to  bless 
God  for  my  having  been  carried  to  America  contrary  to  all 
my  preceding  resolutions.  Thereby  I  trust  He  hath  in  some 
measure  humbled  me  and  proved  me  and  showed  me  what 
was  in  my  heart."  Certainly  self-denial,  resolute  sacrifice, 
a  sense  of  sin,  and  a  constant  hope  for  deliverance  from  sin 
were  in  that  heart,  so  sad  and  weary,  which  turned  back 
from  the  New  World  to  the  Motherland,  and  was  destined 
there  to  redress  the  religious  balance  of  the  British  people. 


JOHN   WESLEY  221 

These  feelings  already  opposed  in  him  the  evils  of  formalism 
and  of  a  provincial  orthodoxy,  and,  whatever  else  was  lost 
or  won,  he  had  guarded  his  integrity  as  a  Christian  pastor, 
even  to  the  crucifying  of  his  natural  affections.  If  a  little 
more  humanness  would  have  added  to  the  geniality  of 
Wesley's  disposition,  it  might  also  have  detracted  from  the 
completeness  of  a  consecration,  the  intensity  of  which  has 
seldom  been  equaled.  His  autocratic  temper  was  a  fault 
for  which  he  had  to  make  his  own  atonement.  Of  quite 
another  sort  were  the  qualities  which  enabled  him  to  handle 
with  unrivaled  strategy  and  daring  the  recruits  who  en- 
listed in  his  crusade.  These  qualities  made  him  prompt, 
fearless,  decisive,  a  bold  leader  in  extremity,  who  kept  the 
marks  he  followed  well  within  the  range  of  his  vision.  His 
later  innovations,  although  deplored  by  his  clerical  brethren, 
were  dictated  by  necessity  and  prompted  by  the  lessons  he 
had  learned  when  defeat  had  been  the  outcome  of  ecclesi- 
astical regularity.  In  reality  he  always  maintained  the 
better  part  of  Anglicanism  as  he  conceived  it.  Swayed  by 
its  spirit  he  expatriated,  himself  for  a  life  of  devotion  and 
service.  It  sustained  him  during  his  absence  from  congenial 
society,  while  as  a  missionary  wearing  coarse  clothes  and 
eating  coarse  food  he  wandered  through  a  virgin  territory  in 
blistering  heat  or  biting  cold.  His  endurance  of  these  hard- 
ships is  proof  that  the  things  in  him  which  could  be  shaken 
were  being  removed  in  order  that  those  which  were  funda- 
mental might  remain.  Oxford  Methodism  began  to  lan- 
guish among  the  chaotic  morals  of  a  turbulent  community, 
but  the  world's  Methodism  was  already  in  process  of  gesta- 
tion ;  and  the  pains  Wesley  endured  were  the  birth  pangs 
of  its  deliverance.  In  Georgia  he  did  nothing  more  than 
experiment  with  a  pietistic  individualism  rooted  in  ritual- 
istic Anglicanism,  which  showed  small  understanding  of  the 
central  truth  of  the  New  Testament.  The  outcome  was 
disastrous,  but  would  his  determined  soul  have  submitted 
to   anything   less   disastrous?     For   while  these   traditions 


222      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

of  his  earlier  religious  life,  as  permanent  elements  in  his 
nature,  were  blended  with  the  more  complete  experience  of 
his  conversion  and  his  subsequent  growth  in  divine  grace, 
they  never  again  controlled  his  energies  or  invalidated  his 
action.  His  narrowness  and  indifference  to  the  interests 
of  the  Church  universal,  and  his  trust  in  the  merit  of  good 
works,  had  received  a  definite  challenge.  Extreme  notions 
regarding  ecclesiastical  prerogatives  and  sacramental  grace 
were  no  longer  so  acceptable  as  they  once  had  been.  The 
quietism  of  the  Moravians  and  the  ignorant  apathy  of 
the  colonists,  although  nothing  akin,  had  shown  Wesley 
that  his  exclusive  ideas  of  the  Gospel  were  not  its  most 
efficient  interpretation,  a  discovery  which  gave  rise  in  him 
to  chastening  reflections.  Yet  those  who  cannot  recall 
his  career  without  a  sense  of  gratitude  will  not  too  hastily 
judge  his  stay  in  Georgia  a  fruitless  period.  It  was  a 
necessary  stage  in  his  evolution,  and  Whitefield,  who  fol- 
lowed him  there,  wrote  enthusiastically  that  "the  good 
Mr.  Wesley  has  done  in  America  is  inexpressible."  This 
was  perhaps  the  exaggerated  tribute  of  one  who  seldom  had 
difficulty  in  believing  what  he  wished  to  believe.  Neverthe- 
less good  had  been  done,  and  in  no  direction  so  much  as  in 
this,  that  Wesley's  larger  self  emerged  from  uncongenial 
surroundings  which  rebuked  his  fastidiousness  and  pride, 
and  taught  him  the  lessons  of  patience  and  wisdom.  The 
illumination  of  his  powers  for  serving  men  to  the  full  was  pre- 
ceded by  the  consciousness  of  a  failure  which  finally  wrought 
in  him  a  more  productive  faith.  His  confessions  during 
the  homeward  voyage  corroborate  these  sentiments.  "I 
went  to  America  to  convert  the  Indians;  but  oh!  who 
shall  convert  me?  .  .  .  I  have  a  fair  summer  religion.  I 
can  talk  well;  nay,  and  believe  myself,  while  no  danger 
is  near.  But  let  death  look  me  in  the  face,  and  my  spirit 
is  troubled.  .  .  .  Whosoever  sees  me,  sees  I  would  be  a 
Christian.  .  .  ,  But  in  a  storm  I  think,  what  if  the  Gospel 
be  not  true?    Then  thou  art  of  all  men  most  foolish.     For 


JOHN   WESLEY  223 

what  hast  thou  given  thy  goods,  thy  ease,  thy  friends,  thy 
reputation,  thy  country,  thy  Hfe?  For  what  art  thou 
wandering  over  the  face  of  the  earth  ?  —  A  dream,  a  cun- 
ningly devised  fable !  Oh !  who  will  deliver  me  from  this 
fear  of  death?  ...  A  wise  man  advised  me  some  time 
since,  'Be  still,  and  go  on.'  Perhaps  this  is  best,  to  look 
upon  it  as  my  cross."  ^  Doubtless  these  melancholy  solil- 
oquies were  prompted  by  his  wounded  affections  as  well 
as  by  spiritual  disquietude.  Miss  Hopkey's  hand  in  mar- 
riage had  been,  to  quote  his  own  words,  "the  desire  of  my 
eyes  and  the  joy  of  my  heart;  the  one  thing  upon  earth  I 
longed  for."  Such  a  love,  unsealing  as  it  does  the  nethermost 
springs  of  life,  creates,  when  thus  repressed,  a  grief  likely 
to  become  permanent.  But  notwithstanding  these  grave 
discouragements,  he  accepted  the  wise  man's  word,  and  went 
on,  not  knowing  that  his  greater  heritage  was  near. 

II 

Wesley  landed  at  Deal  on  the  first  of  February,  1737, 
just  a  few  hours  too  late  to  receive  the  greetings  of  his 
friend  Whitefield,  whose  whole-souled  companionship  would 
have  been  especially  acceptable  at  this  time.  But  after 
a  victorious  experiment  in  field-preaching,  Whitefield  was 
then  sailing  down  the  Channel  on  a  voyage  to  Savannah. 
During  the  first  months  after  his  return,  Wesley  passed 
through  a  period  of  restless  discontent,  not  to  say  vehement 
agitation.  Clerical  complacency  was  a  banished  sentiment ; 
conventional'  beliefs  had  lost  their  authoritative  note; 
he  chafed  beneath  that  sense  of  impotence  so  distressing 
to  men  who  are  intent  upon  noble  ends  and  have  not  yet 
found  the  means  for  their  attainment.  The  account  of 
this  interval  and  of  his  efforts  to  meet  its  emergencies, 
as  given  in  the  Journal,  is  in  all  respects  a  clear,  manly, 

"The  Journal  of  John  Wesley":  edited  by  Rev.  Nehemiah  Curnock; 
Vol.  I,  p.  418. 


224      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

and  candid  narrative.  He  was  entering  upon  an  epoch  where 
extensive  changes  were  to  prevail,  and  he  had  a  tough 
struggle  to  break  through  the  barriers  of  prejudice  and 
habit.  His  emotions  and  aspirations  were  such  as  led  him 
to  deeds  of  capital  consequence.  Beyond  doubt  he  was  a 
Christian  and  practically  at  one  with  all  Christians  on  the 
fundamental  questions  of  morality  and  worship.  But 
hitherto  his  advanced  sacramentarianism  and  legalism  had 
been  the  trusted  vehicles  for  communication  of  divine  life, 
and  the  revolution  now  imminent  in  him  was  such  a  com- 
plete displacement  of  those  doctrines,  and  one  so  entirely  due 
to  the  royal  faculty  of  faith,  that  it  became  a  signal  event 
in  the  history  of  evangelical  methods.  His  entire  being 
verged  upon  a  new  world,  wherein  he  was  to  become  supreme, 
overcoming  by  the  weight  of  his  witness  those  Anglican 
ideas  which  had  previously  governed  him. 

Meanwhile  he  hastened  to  London,  and  reported  to  the 
Trustees  of  the  Georgia  Settlement.  There  he  found  his 
brother  Charles,  who  entered  heartily  into  his  projects,  and 
they  began  to  attend  the  gatherings  of  the  Brethren.  Peter 
Bohler,  a  native  of  Frankfort,  a  graduate  of  Jena  and  a 
convert  to  Moravianism,  had  been  ordained  in  Germany 
and  commissioned  by  Count  Zinzendorf  for  missionary  work 
in  the  Carolinas.  During  his  stay  in  London  he  was  intro- 
duced to  the  Wesleys,  who  were  much  edified  by  his  quiet 
and  persuasive  preaching.  Although  ministering  through 
an  interpreter,  his  words  were  suffused  with  a  mystical  in- 
fluence which  subdued  and  elevated  the  secluded  audiences 
he  addressed,  and  his  connection  with  the  Wesleys  has 
since  cast  a  solitary  beam  of  splendor  upon  his  brief  so- 
journ in  England.  Charles  gave  him  lessons  in  the  lan- 
guage; John  cross-examined  him  on  the  matters  which 
prevented  his  own  peace.  Bohler's  answers  consisted,  in 
the  main,  of  quotations  from  Scripture,  specifically  those 
passages  which  deal  with  regeneration.  He  showed  that 
salvation  is  of  God,  through  Christ  Jesus,  and  by  means  of 


JOHN   WESLEY  225 

His  Death  and  Resurrection ;  the  sole  conditions  of  its  be- 
stowal being  repentance  and  faith  on  the  part  of  the  re- 
cipient. These  graces  are  supplied  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  Who 
inclines  believing  hearts  to  respond  to  the  overtures  of  mercy, 
and  confirms  in  them  the  assurance  of  their  filial  relation 
with  the  Heavenly  Father.  The  content  of  this  creed, 
sanctioned  as  it  is  by  Holy  Writ,  is  summarized  in  the  text, 
"He  that  believeth  on  the  Son  hath  everlasting  life."  The 
challenge  Luther  hurled  at  the  conscience  of  Christendom 
was  due  to  his  vivid  apprehension  of  the  declaration,  "Now 
the  just  shall  live  by  faith,"  and  his  conversion  furnishes  an 
instructive  parallel  with  that  of  Wesley.  In  both  cases  a 
large  space  of  time  is  covered  with  a  series  of  confessions 
which  reveal  important  points  of  change  and  progress  ap- 
parently inconsistent,  and,  to  those  not  in  spiritual  sympathy 
with  the  men,  somewhat  perplexing.  Luther's  mind  was  emi- 
nently intuitional,  glancing  with  an  eagle's  eye  at  truth  when- 
ever it  rose  before  him.  Wesley's  mind  was  eminently 
logical,  arriving  at  conclusions  by  argumentative  processes. 
Luther's  theology  sprang  directly  from  his  experience; 
Wesley's  was  illuminated  and  applied  by  his  experience. 
He  learned  the  doctrine  of  Justification  by  faith  before  he 
exercised  the  faith  which  brought  him  consciously  into  a 
justified  condition.  Both  were  alike  in  that  they  did  not 
at  once  gain  certitude  without  wavering,  but  tarried  for  a 
fuller  revelation  which  secured  their  unreserved  consent,  and 
induced  in  them  a  state  of  exaltation  and  of  praise. 

The  placid  but  observant  Bohler  saw  that  the  Wesleys 
had  come  to  the  parting  of  the  ways,  and  in  a  letter  to 
Zinzendorf  he  gave  his  impressions  of  their  state.  "I 
travelled  with  the  two  brothers  from  London  to  Oxford. 
The  elder,  John,  is  a  good-natured  man;  he  knew  he  did 
not  properly  believe  on  the  Saviour,  and  was  willing  to  be 
taught.  His  brother,  with  whom  you  often  conversed  a 
year  ago,  is  at  present  very  much  distressed  in  his  mind,  but 
does  not  know  how  he  shall  begin  to  be  acquainted  with  the 


226      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

Saviour.  Our  mode  of  believing  in  the  Saviour  is  so  easy 
to  Englishmen,  that  they  cannot  reconcile  themselves  to  it ; 
if  it  were  a  little  more  artful,  they  would  much  sooner  find 
their  way  into  it.  Of  faith  in  Jesus  they  have  no  other  idea 
than  the  generality  of  people  have.  They  justify  themselves ; 
and  therefore,  they  always  take  it  for  granted,  that  they 
believe  already,  and  try  to  prove  their  faith  by  their  works, 
and  thus  so  plague  and  torment  themselves  that  they  are 
at  heart  very  miserable."  ^  On  the  journey,  and  while  at 
Oxford,  Wesley  began  dimly  to  apprehend  the  secret  Bohler 
strove  to  impart.  This  in  substance  was  the  verification  by 
actual  experience  of  the  principal  teachings  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. These  were  also  embedded  in  the  doctrinal  formulae 
long  familiar  to  Wesley,  but  he  had  not  yet  abandoned 
himself  to  them  with  that  resolution  which  surmounts  every 
obstacle,  or  in  that  faith  which  is  disengaged  from  all 
supplementary  considerations  and  fixed  on  Christ  alone. 
Dependence  on  the  outward  form  instead  of  the  inward  vital- 
ity of  the  Gospel  was  seldom  more  palpably  shown,  yet  it 
is  only  too  frequent  in  professed  Christians,  and  operates 
so  subtly  that  they  think  of  it  as  little  as  of  the  air  they 
breathe.  A  Laodicean  contentment  arising  out  of  super- 
ficial assent  to  mere  dogma  deprives  many  believers  of 
real  fellowship  with  their  Risen  Redeemer.  Here,  as  else- 
where, the  witness  of  Christian  consciousness,  which  extends 
not  merely  to  abstract  or  speculative  opinions,  but  to  the 
whole  current  of  feeling  and  of  action  in  the  regenerated 
soul,  is  left  stranded  on  the  shore  of  oblivious  years,  while 
men  forget  the  solemn  warning  that  "the  letter  killeth  but 
the  spirit  giveth  life."  Justification  by  faith  is  an  historic 
phrase  covering  the  profound  depths  of  religious  experience, 
of  which  the  content  cannot  be  expressed  in  any  statement, 
however  full  or  apposite.  The  tides  of  that  experience  be- 
gan to  stir  in  Wesley,  and  though  they  ebbed,  they  ebbed 
to  flow  again,  bringing  on  their  returning  crest  a  strength 
iL.  Tyerman:   "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  I,  pp.  181-182. 


JOHN   WESLEY  227 

of  will,  a  courage,  and  an  assurance  which  made  him  a 
wonder  to  himself  and  to  others. 

Decisive  moments  which  affect  the  wider  circles  of  hu- 
man existence  are  rare  indeed,  and  Wesley  now  approached 
one  that  has  seldom  been  surpassed  in  interest  or  impor- 
tance. God's  intervention  drew  near,  when  the  manifesta- 
tion of  love  divine  ended  the  travail  of  this  seeker  after 
the  highest  life  and  truth,  and  endowed  him  with  gifts  for 
the  strengthening  of  his  brethren.  The  crisis  showed  that 
even  the  best  and  most  sincere  men  are  never  the  masters 
of  their  highest  destiny :  that  heaven  in  recognition  of 
their  single-mindedness  takes  their  wood  and  gives  them 
iron ;   their  iron,  and  gives  them  gold. 

Between  February  the  first  and  the  date  of  his  conversion 
he  preached  at  least  eighty  sermons  in  London,  Oxford, 
Manchester,  and  other  centers,  to  congregations  so  widely 
separated  as  the  prisoners  of  the  common  jails  and  the 
students  and  professors  of  the  University.  Although  not 
averse  to  this  duty,  he  was  still  in  bondage ;  and  he  tells  us 
that  he  spent  March  the  fourth  with  Bohler,  "  by  whom,  in  the 
hands  of  the  great  God,  I  was  on  Sunday,  the  fifth,  clearly 
convinced  of  unbelief,  of  the  want  of  that  faith  whereby  we 
are  saved."  "How  can  I  preach  to  others  who  have  not 
faith  myself?"  was  his  pathetic  query.  In  his  bewilderment 
he  turned  again  to  Bohler,  who  counseled  him,  "Preach 
faith  till  you  have  it,  and  then  because  you  have  it  you 
will  preach  faith."  Implicit  reliance  upon  the  Moravian's 
precept  was  not  a  simple  process  for  the  High  Churchman. 
It  involved  the  consummation  of  beliefs  he  already  held, 
but  which  did  not  as  yet  hold  him  in  their  resistless  grasp ; 
yet,  once  they  were  freed  from  opposing  elements,  his  soul 
was  drawn  to  them  as  flame  is  drawn  to  flame,  and  faith  be- 
came the  definite,  preponderant  ingredient  of  his  personal 
relation  with  God  in  Christ  Jesus.  This  explanation  suf- 
fices to  show  the  impropriety  of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge's 
stupid    comment    on   Wesley's   dilemma.      The    Highgate 


228      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF  [OXFORD 

philosopher  avowed  that  Bohler's  suggestion  was  tanta- 
mount to  saying :  "  Tell  a  lie  long  enough  and  often  enough 
and  you  will  be  sure  to  end  by  believing  it,"  a  cheap  and 
shallow  criticism  devoid  of  application  and  lacking  moral 
insight  and  sympathy  for  a  situation  of  peculiar  delicacy. 

On  Monday,  March  the  sixth,  Wesley  put  Bohler's  doc- 
trine to  the  test  by  proclaiming  to  a  felon  awaiting  execution 
eternal  life  and  blessedness  through  voluntary  acceptance 
of  the  promises  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  The  condemned 
man  at  once  responded,  relying  with  absolute  confidence 
upon  the  Gospel  as  thus  stated,  and  its  consolations  en- 
abled him  to  die  with  a  "  composed  cheerfulness  and  serene 
peace."  Wesley's  questionings  were  silenced ;  he  hastened 
from  the  cell  of  the  outcast  to  a  renewed  study  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  where  he  found  sufficient  evidence  that  repent- 
ance at  the  last  hour  was  a  possibility  and  conversion  fre- 
quently instantaneous.  On  Lord's  Day,  the  twenty-third  of 
the  following  month,  he  heard  further  testimony  from  "  liv- 
ing witnesses,"  who  declared  that  these  operations  of  saving 
grace  were  not  confined  to  the  Apostolic  Age.  They  had 
persisted  throughout  the  schisms  and  heresies  wrought  by 
rites  and  ceremonies,  symbols  and  theories,  ecclesiastical 
claims  and  counter  claims,  and  were  being  repeated  in  his 
own  day.  Thus  he  was  slowly  drawn  from  under  the  cold 
shadows  of  clerical  intolerance  and  misconception  into  the 
sunshine  of  the  all-sufficient  Love  Divine.  "Here  ended," 
he  wrote,  "  my  disputing.  I  could  now  only  cry  out,  '  Lord, 
help  thou  my  unbelief.'"  ^  Such  were  the  heraldings  of  the 
dawn  which  abolished  his  misgivings,  extending  and  irra- 
diating his  spiritual  horizon,  and  fixing  his  faith  upon  its 
central  luminary,  the  Son  of  God  Who  loved  him  and  gave 
Himself  for  him. 

While  the  actual  moment  of  his  daybreak  lingered,  it  was 
anticipated  by  that  of  his  brother  Charles,  who  lay  sick  in 

1  " The  Journal  of  John  Wesley":  edited  by  Rev.  Nehemiah  Curnock; 
Vol.  I,  p.  455. 


JOHN   WESLEY  229 

mind  and  body  at  the  home  in  Little  Britain  ^  of  a  tradesman 
named  Bray,  where  he  was  visited  by  his  brother  John, 
Bohler,  and  other  friends.  They  held  frequent  conver- 
sations with  him,  and  offered  prayers  for  his  recovery. 
Mrs.  Turner,  the  sister  of  his  host,  who  had  recently  found 
peace  through  believing,  consented  to  bear  a  message  of 
comfort  and  command  to  their  guest.  Accordingly,  on  the 
anniversary  of  the  Feast  of  Pentecost,  coming  to  the  door 
of  his  room,  she  called  to  him  in  soft,  clear  tones,  "In  the 
name  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  arise  and  believe  and  thou 
shalt  be  healed  of  thy  infirmities."  Charles  at  once  obeyed 
the  injunction  and  trusted  the  promise ;  at  the  instigation 
of  an  obscure  agent  began  for  him  his  rejuvenated  being, 
and  for  the  Church  that  enraptured  burst  of  Christian  song 
which  has  kindled  and  refined  her  adoration  of  the  Holiest. 
Meanwhile,  John's  resentment  was  aroused  against  the  theo- 
logical guides  he  had  read  or  consulted,  because  they  had  not 
directed  him  to  the  simplicity  which  is  in  Christ.  He  wrote 
a  letter  to  William  Law,  arraigning  him  in  terms  reminiscent 
of  his  old  hierarchical  temper,  bearing  down  upon  his  for- 
mer mentor  with  a  stringency  indicative  of  his  inward  dis- 
turbance, and  an  immoderation  which  for  the  time  over- 
came his  charity.  "Now,  sir,"  he  demanded,  in  reference 
to  Bohler's  views,  "  suffer  me  to  ask,  how  will  you  answer  it 
to  our  common  Lord,  that  you  never  gave  me  this  advice? 
Did  you  never  read  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  or  the  answer 
of  Paul  to  him  who  said,  'WTiat  must  I  do  to  be  saved'? 
Or  are  you  wiser  than  he  ?  Why  did  I  scarce  ever  hear  you 
name  the  name  of  Christ  ?  Never  so  as  to  ground  anything 
upon  faith  in  his  blood  ?  Who  is  this  who  is  laying  another 
foundation?  If  you  say  you  advised  other  things  as  pre- 
paratory to  this,  what  is  this  but  laying  a  foundation  below 
the  foundation?  ...  I  beseech  you,  sir,  by  the  mercies  of 
God,  to  consider  deeply  and  impartially  whether  the  true 
reason  of  your  never  pressing  this  upon  me  was  not  this  — 

1  A  London  street  still  to  be  found  in  the  eastern  section  of  the  city. 


230      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

that  you  had  it  not  yourself?"  ^  Law  met  this  fulmination 
with  the  reply  that  his  instruction  had  been  in  substance, 
though  not  in  expression,  identical  with  that  of  Bohler, 
and  concluded  with  the  timely  admonition,  "Let  me  advise 
you  not  to  be  too  hasty  in  believing  that  because  you  have 
changed  your  language  you  have  changed  your  faith.  The 
head  can  as  easily  amuse  itself  with  a  living  and  justifying 
faith  in  the  blood  of  Jesus  as  with  any  other  notion,  and  the 
heart  which  you  suppose  to  be  a  place  of  security,  as  being 
the  seat  of  self-love,  is  more  deceitful  than  the  head."  ^ 
Law  was  not  appreciated  by  the  deists  of  his  generation, 
nor  could  this  be  expected ;  for,  as  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  remarks, 
"A  mystic  in  a  common  sense  atmosphere  can  no  more 
flourish  than  an  Alpine  plant  transplanted  to  the  Lowlands." 
But  he  had  a  claim  to  Wesley's  grateful  respect  on  the 
grounds  both  of  his  personal  character  and  his  teaching. 
Even  Gibbon,  who  showed  scanty  appreciation  for  Chris- 
tianity, referred  to  Law  in  his  Autobiography  with  affec- 
tionate esteem.  "In  our  family,"  observed  the  historian, 
"he  left  a  reputation  of  a  worthy  and  pious  man  who  be- 
lieved all  he  professed  and  practised  all  he  enjoined."  In 
later  days  Wesley  himself  acknowledged  that  Law's  writings 
first  sowed  the  seed  of  Methodism,  and  stemmed  the  torrent 
of  infidelity  and  immorality  which  had  submerged  the  Eng- 
lish people  since  the  Restoration.  Certainly  "it  was  Law 
'^^  who,  alone  of  living  writers,  materially  influenced  Wesley's 
mind;  and  gave  to  universal  principles  that  special  form 
which  rendered  them  suitable  at  the  moment."  ^  His  sub- 
jective treatment  of  Christian  doctrine,  particularly  of  the 
Atonement  and  other  articles  of  which  Wesley  had  com- 
plained, was  characterized  by  remarkable  spiritual  origi- 
nality. Law's  superiority  to  Wesley  as  a  thinker  was  shown 
in   the   correspondence  that  ensued  between   them.     The 

'  L.  Tyerman :   "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  186. 
2  Ibid.,  p.  187. 

'Sir  Leslie  Stephen:    "English  Thought  in  the  Eighteenth   Century"; 
Vol.  I,  p.  158. 


JOHN  WESLEY  231 

honors  of  the  dispute  remained  with  Law,  the  more  so  be- 
cause his  opponent  injected  into  it  personal  charges  which 
should  not  have  been  made.  The  unfortunate  aspect  of 
the  controversy  was  that  it  estranged  two  sincere  servants 
of  God.  Of  the  few  glaring  indiscretions  of  the  sort  which 
can  be  charged  against  Wesley,  this  perhaps  was  the  most 
unnecessary.  He  turned  from  its  embarrassments  to  con- 
sult with  Bohler  until  the  latter's  departure  for  the  Caro- 
linas,  and  then  went  forward  to  his  Peniel  alone. 

The  twenty-fourth  of  May,  1738,  has  always  been  kept  by 
Methodists  as  the  day  which  ended  their  Founder's  night  of 
wrestling.  Wesley  rose  at  five  o'clock  on  that  memorable 
morning,  and,  opening  the  New  Testament,  read  these  words  : 
"Whereby  are  given  unto  us  exceeding  great  and  precious 
promises ;  that  by  these  ye  might  be  partakers  of  the  divine 
nature."  After  a  while  he  again  opened  the  book  and  read 
—  "Thou  art  not  far  from  the  Kingdom  of  God."  In  the 
afternoon  he  attended  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  where  the  an- 
them was  taken  from  the  130th  Psalm  as  found  in  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer :  ^  "  Out  of  the  deep  I  have  called  unto 
thee,  O  Lord :  Lord,  hear  my  voice.  O  let  thine  ears  con- 
sider well  the  voice  of  my  complaint."  As  the  strains  of 
supplication  and  praise  rolled  in  long  melodious  thunder 
beneath  the  soaring  arches  and  lofty  dome  of  the  sanctu- 
ary, this  humble  worshiper  found  his  refuge  in  the  words, 
"  My  soul  fleeth  unto  the  Lord :  before  the  morning  watch, 
I  say,  before  the  morning  watch."  The  choristers  sang  of 
trust  in  His  changeless  mercy  and  plenteous  redemption: 
outpourings  of  a  faith  which  had  been  the  stay  of  Juda- 
ism, and  was  now  the  comfort  of  one  who  was  to  become  a 
prince  in  God's  spiritual  Israel. 

He  left  the  Cathedral  to  enter  upon  the  experience  which 
he  describes  in  simple,  solemn,  convincing  language,  un- 
colored  by  hectic  emotion,  and  stamped  with  reality.     His 

1  The  music  for  this  anthem  was  probably  written  by  Purcell,  the  greatest 
of  English  composers  of  cathedral  anthems. 


232      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

words  have  burned  in  countless  hearts,  many  of  which  have 
known  their  inmost  meaning,  "  In  the  evening  I  went  very 
unwilh'ngly  to  a  Society  ^  in  Aldersgate  Street  where  one 
was  reading  Luther's  preface  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans. 
About  a  quarter  before  nine,  while  he  was  describing  the 
change  which  God  works  in  the  heart  through  faith  in  Christ, 
I  felt  my  heart  strangely  warmed.  I  felt  I  did  trust  in  Christ, 
Christ  alone  for  salvation ;  and  an  assurance  was  given  me 
that  He  had  taken  away  my  sins,  even  mine,  and  saved  me 
from  the  law  of  sin  and  death.  I  began  to  pray  with  all  my 
might  for  those  who  had  in  a  more  especial  manner  despite- 
fully  used  me  and  persecuted  me.  I  then  testified  openly 
to  all  there  what  I  now  first  felt  in  my  heart.  But  it  was  not 
long  before  the  enemy  suggested,  'This  cannot  be  faith; 
for  where  is  thy  joy?'  Then  was  I  taught  that  peace  and 
victory  over  sin  are  essential  to  faith  in  the  Captain  of  our 
salvation ;  but  that,  as  to  the  transports  of  joy  that  usually 
attend  the  beginning  of  it,  especially  in  those  who  have 
mourned  deeply,  God  sometimes  giveth,  sometimes  with- 
holdeth  them,  according  to  the  counsels  of  His  own  will." 

His  regeneration  should  not  be  confused  with  those  renun- 
ciations of  religious  or  philosophical  opinions  at  the  behest 
of  conviction,  under  the  impulse  of  which  Carlyle  left 
the  Calvinism  of  his  youth;  Martineau  ceased  to  be  an 
orthodox  Unitarian ;  Mill  rejoiced  over  his  social  gospel 
after  reading  Dumont's  interpretation  of  Benthamism  in  the 
"Traite  de  la  Legislation";  and  Newman  passed  into  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  Wesley's  was  preeminently  a  vital 
change,  which,  while  more  or  less  sharing  the  intellectual 
importance  of  the  instances  named,  surpassed  them  in  the 
qualities  it  evinced  and  the  services  it  rendered.  In  many 
respects  it  closely  resembled  St.  Paul's  conversion,  and  can 
be  more  fittingly  compared  with  that  classic  proof  of  justify- 
ing faith,  or  with  the  transformation  wrought  in  Luther,  than 

'  This  was  the  Anglican  Society  in  Nettleton  Court,  conducted  by  Jamea 
Hutton,  and  not,  as  many  have  supposed,  a  Moravian  gathering. 


JOHN   WESLEY  233 

with  any  other  individual  witness  to  the  saving  knowledge  of 
Jesus  Christ.  Certainly  after  Wesley's  realization  of  eternal 
verities  his  former  limitations  disappeared  :  his  soul  yielded 
to  "the  expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection,"  and  the  priest 
was  merged  into  the  prophet.  He  was  no  longer  compelled 
to  rest  his  case  as  a  Christian  upon  human  authority,  however 
sacred.  His  belief  in  the  Church  and  in  the  Bible  had 
enabled  them  to  bear  an  indirect  testimony  sufficient  to 
stimulate  his  devout  and  conscientious  inquiries.  But  he 
had  discovered  that  any  beliefs  which  hinged  upon  the 
word  of  an  earthly  witness  worked  under  defective  condi- 
tions, and  varied  with  his  estimate  of  that  witness ;  that 
faith  so  founded  could  be  weakened,  and  lacked  the  tenacity 
and  the  purity  which  characterized  the  faith  that  came 
through  personal  contact  with  the  Son  of  God.  In  these 
experiments  he  at  last  seized  upon  the  very  essence  of  the 
Gospel  of  his  Lord,  and  occupied  a  position  from  which  he 
could  not  be  dislodged.  Based  upon  the  rock  of  an  in- 
disturbable  assurance,  his  religion  was  never  again  mini- 
mized into  a  mere  scheme  of  probabilities :  he  felt  the 
results  of  a  living  intercourse  with  Christ,  and  he  might 
have  stated  them  in  the  w^ords  of  the  Samaritans  to  their 
country-woman :  "  Now  we  believe,  not  because  of  thy  say- 
ing, for  we  have  heard  Him  ourselves,  and  know  that  this 
is  indeed  the  Christ,  the  Saviour  of  the  world." 

The  chronic  irritation  which  had  given  him  no  rest  was 
banished ;  he  drew  from  the  springs  of  heavenly  love  a  vital 
energy,  and  with  his  spiritual  faculties  thus  quickened  he 
gained  the  perception  of  truth;  not  the  deceptive  half- 
truth  of  material  science  that  conceals  the  germs  of  agnos- 
ticism, but  the  truth  that  transcends  mere  intellectual 
knowledge,  the  truth  which  is  the  objective  of  such  faith  as  his. 
In  the  prime  of  manhood,  he  passed  at  a  bound  to  a  high 
point  of  being,  and  carried  to  the  grave  untarnished  and 
unimpaired  the  plenitudes  of  restoration  and  of  power  which 
then  became  his  own.     Neither  life  nor  death  was  suffered 


234      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

to  take  one  jot  of  their  meaning  from  his  heart ;  their  reg- 
nancy  increased  with  the  passing  of  his  years.  His  regen- 
eration, apparently  spontaneous,  was  really  the  outgrowth 
of  all  he  had  been.  But  he  was  now  enlarged,  enriched, 
illuminated  in  every  province  of  his  nature.  Nor  could  sub- 
sequent changes  of  feeling  or  circumstance  weaken  his  hold 
on  God  or  on  his  fellow-men. 

It  is  no  detraction  from  his  superior  value  as  a  Christian 
to  recognize  in  him  the  egoism  out  of  which  his  growth 
and  service  were  shaped  by  higher  impulses.  If  he  some- 
times spoke,  like  St.  Augustine  and  Bunyan,  as  though 
the  Creator  and  himself  were  the  only  valid  ends  for 
which  all  things  else  were  the  means,  this  re-adjustment 
of  his  soul's  fellowship  with  its  Maker  ennobled  every 
other  relation  he  sustained.  Fixed  in  his  conscious  accept- 
ance with  God,  he  was  enabled  to  move  with  freedom  in 
the  entire  region  of  his  reconstructed  existence.  The  grace 
he  had  received  imparted  no  flawless  excellence,  but  it  en- 
dowed him  with  a  vigilance,  a  resolution,  and  a  wisdom 
which  were  typical  of  Protestant  Christianity  at  its  best, 
and  it  rebuked  the  materialized  conceptions  and  indirect 
methods  of  its  appropriation  which  proceed  from  external 
things. 

Our  reverence  for  Wesley  is  the  greater  because  of  the 
devotion  with  which  he  accepted  and  acted  upon  the  in- 
disputable fact  of  his  new  life  in  Christ.  Only  in  the 
light  of  that  devotion,  and  of  all  it  involved,  can  we 
form  an  adequate  estimate  of  the  warm,  aspiring  saint,  as 
distinguished  from  the  artificial  character,  cold  as  monu- 
mental marble,  which  some  have  ascribed  to  him  in  the 
interests  of  doctrinal  theories.  He  was  deeply  aware  that 
he  had  been  created  again  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  the  knowl- 
edge gave  him  rest  and  gladnesjji  Yet  he  offered  his  sacri- 
fice in  humility,  as  one  who  was  not  meet,  being  careful 
to  reserve  nothing  from  the  altar  of  consecration.  More- 
over, because  the  Gospel  was  a  sanctifying  energy,  he  re- 


JOHN  WESLEY  235 

sented  every  effort  to  belittle  or  obscure  it.  Yet  the 
controversialist  and  the  precisionist  were  no  longer  welcome 
to  him :  he  rather  laid  emphasis  upon  the  grace  of  God 
manifested  in  the  forgiveness  of  his  sin  and  in  his  deliverance 
from  its  shame  and  guilt.  This  grace  solved  the  problems 
which  once  perplexed  him ;  answered  the  questions  that  had 
not  spared  his  tranquillity ;  imbued  him  with  a  divine  sensi- 
bility and  equipped  him  for  thejnission  which  at  once  be- 
came an  inherent  part  of  his  life.^  The  vision  of  Christ  as  the 
Redeemer  of  mankind  was  the  heart  of  his  message ;  the 
only  Gospel  sufficient  for  the  saving  of  his  own  soul  and  of 
them  that  heard  himj 

Such,  then,  was  the  nature  of  Wesley's  faith,  prepared  as 
it  was  to  forsake  derivative  beliefs,  if  by  so  doing  it  could 
secure  that  immediate  access  where  the  finite  draws  life 
from  the  infinite.  He  pushed  his  interrogations  to  the  last 
issue,  distinguishing,  as  he  did  so,  between  opinions  and 
convictions,  and  construing  truth  in  the  light  of  the  spirit 
and  word  of  the  New  Testament.  Beginning  with  inquiry, 
he  was  not  content  to  detect  his  inconsistencies,  or  dwell 
upon  his  needs,  but  went  forward  till  he  found  an  all- 
sufficient  object  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  fastened  his  trust  and 
obedience  upon  Him.  Cardinal  Newman,  remarked  that 
this  was  an  inverted  process  :  that  the  Roman  devotee  begins 
with  belief,  and  reverently  following  the  divine  instincts, 
draws  out  their  hidden  oracles  into  the  symmetry  of  a  holy 
philosophy.  The  distinction  is  worth  attention,  but  the 
fruits  of  Wesley's  faith  are  the  best  answer  to  Newman's 
objection.  That  his  extraordinary  experience  should  arouse 
criticism,  especially  after  it  became  the  type  and  standard 
of  countless  similar  experiences,  was  to  be  expected.  Skep- 
ticism could  not  suffer  so  startling  a  rebuke  to  pass  unno- 
ticed ;  for  men  resent  nothing  so  much  as  the  unexpected 
advent  of  a  truth  that  wrecks  their  assumptions.  Whether 
cultured  or  ignorant,  imaginative  or  stupid,  they  agreed  in 
protesting  against  the  claims  made  by  Wesley  and  his  fol- 


236      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

lowers.  The  transformations  of  life  and  character  on  which 
they  were  based  confuted  those  who  were  forced  to  admit 
their  actual  occurrence,  but  attached  to  them  their  own 
explanation.  Hence  Coleridge  maintained  that  Wesley's 
assurance  of  salvation  was  nothing  more  than  "a  strong 
pulse  or  throb  of  sensibility  accompanying  the  vehement 
volition  of  acquiescence :  an  ardent  desire  to  find  the  posi- 
tion true  and  a  concurring  determination  to  receive  it  as 
truth."  This  may  be  a  correct  psychological  definition  of 
some  conversions,  but  in  Wesley's  case  its  sonorous  phrase- 
ology is  misleading.  Coleridge  evidently  took  it  for  granted 
that  the  divine  element  dominant  in  the  change  then 
wrought  was  not  worthy  of  his  consideration.  He  had  no 
valid  ground  for  any  such  attitude,  and  the  omission  of  that 
element  so  completely  vitiated  his  analysis  that  it  had  about 
as  much  bearing  on  Wesley's  actual  experience,  its  nature, 
intensity,  and  extent,  as  the  nebulous  vapors  of  the  heavens 
have  upon  the  motions  of  the  planets. 

Further,  notwithstanding  Wesley's  occasional  lapses  into 
sentimentalism,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  he  was  a  great 
Christian  who  was  also  a  great  Englishman.  He  belonged  to 
a  people  whose  pieties  have  never  been  divorced  either  from 
reason  or  ethics,  who  were  Pragmatists  before  Pragmatism, 
and  whose  accepted  test  for  enthusiasm,  vehemence,  or  pro- 
fession, is  practice.  Their  first  question  concerning  theories 
or  institutions  is  not, "  What  can  be  said  for  or  against  them  ?  " 
but,  "How  dp  they  work?"  Their  theology  and  religion 
have  always  been  influenced  by  politics  and  morality ;  hence 
the  paradoxical  compromises  of  the  English  Reformation 
defied  the  consistency  so  dear  to  the  French  mind,  in  order 
that  they  might  include  the  main  currents  of  public  opinion. 
Innate  conservatism  is  apparent  at  every  stage  of  the  reli- 
gious development  of  the  nation  in  which  Wesley  became  a 
representative  teacher.  The  mystical  fervors  found  in  the 
Latin  race,  which  ran  to  extremes  even  in  the  Moravians, 
were  moderated  by   the  utilitarian  tendency  of   Anglican 


JOHN   WESLEY  237 

saints.  They  usually  related  their  ecstasies  to  earthly 
affairs,  economizing  them  for  that  purpose;  the  extrava- 
gances of  St.  Francis,  of  St.  John  of  the  Cross,  and  even  of 
Boehme  were  foreign  to  the  more  sober  but  equally  intent 
piety  of  such  men  as  Lancelot  Andrewes,  Richard  Hooker, 
and  Jeremy  Taylor.  In  a  letter  written  to  his  brother 
Samuel,  dated  November  23,  1736,  Wesley  says,  "I  think 
the  rock  on  which  I  had  the  nearest  made  shipwreck  of  the 
faith  was  the  writings  of  the  mystics;  under  which  term 
I  comprehend  all,  and  only  those,  who  slight  any  of  the 
means  of  grace.  .  .  .  Men  utterly  divested  of  free  will, 
of  self-love,  and  self-activity,  are  entered  into  the  passive 
state,  and  enjoy  such  a  contemplation  as  is  not  only  above 
faith,  but  above  sight.  .  .  .  They  have  absolutely  renounced 
their  reason  and  understanding;  else  they  could  not  be 
guided  by  a  Divine  Light.  They  seek  no  clear  or  particular 
knowledge  of  anything,  but  only  an  obscure,  general  knowl- 
edge. .  .  .  Sight,  or  something  more  than  sight,  takes  the 
place  of  faith."  ^  These  avowals  of  the  dangers  he  had  so 
barely  escaped  leave  no  doubt  on  the  point  at  issue.  He 
clung  to  the  venerable  guarantees  of  historic  Christianity, 
avoiding  sensational  and  gratuitous  changes,  but  adopting 
those  dictated  by  the  expansion  of  his  heart  and  work. 

It  is  one  of  the  triumphs  of  originality  not  to  invent  or 
discover  what  is  probably  already  known,  but  by  a  revivify- 
ing of  former  things  to  make  their  meaning  new  and  irre- 
sistiblej  Wesley's  conversion  was  a  good  example  of  this 
process.  His  entire  life  hitherto  had  been  steadily  directed 
toward  the  inflatus  it  then  received  and  the  decision  with 
which  he  received  it.  Even  his  doubts  and  diflBculties  had 
contributed  to  his  regeneration.  He  might  have  said  in 
the  language  of  a  later  day, 

"Thoughts  hardly  to  be  packed 
Into  a  narrow  act, 
Fancies  that  broke  through  language  and  escaped ; 

1  L.  Tyerman  :   "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  I,  pp.  133-134. 


238      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

All  I  could  never  be, 

All  men  ignored  in  me, 

This  was  I  worth  to  God,  whose  wheel  the  pitcher  shaped." 

He  was  early  set  apart  by  his  mother's  diligent  care  for 
his  soul,  and  her  reminder  that  he  could  be  saved  only 
by  keeping  all  the  commandments  of  his  Maker.  This 
excited  his  sense  of  moral  responsibility,  making  him  appre- 
hensive of  the  approaches  of  evil  and  painfully  censorious  of 
himself.  It  prevented  him  from  regarding  sin  as  being 
nothing  more  than  a  general  imperfection,  and  his  grief 
over  past  failures  strengthened  in  him  the  presuppositions 
of  the  Gospel  which  delivers  men  from  sin.  In  his  dealings 
with  heaven  he  could  not  brook  trifling  or  evasion ;  every 
act  of  worship  was  candid  and  absorbing.  The  despair 
his  previous  state  had  evoked  was  the  prelude  to  the 
;  rapture  of  his  deliverance,  and  his  subsequent  ministry 
'  was  proportioned  by  his  experiences  both  of  sorrow  and 
of  joy.  His  affection  for  the  beauty  and  appropriateness 
of  the  Anglican  liturgy  remained  unchanged.  He  con- 
tinued to  associate  faith  not  only  with  worship  but  with 
work,  and  he  had  no  sooner  begun  to  preach  than  he 
established  an  orphanage  at  Newcastle.  Alert  to  the 
dangers  of  exuberant  emotionalism,  he  warned  his  con- 
verts that  an  uprush  of  feeling  did  not  necessarily  indicate 
divine  sonship.  It  was  to  be  validated  by  corresponding 
deeds,  since  a  profession  of  religion  without  its  fruits 
was  vanity.  Here  the  young  Oxonian  of  the  Bocardo 
reappeared,  and  while  he  preached  faith  he  also  main- 
tained that  "he  who  doeth  righteousness  is  righteous." 
The  presumptions  of  those  who  imagined  they  had  exclusive 
rights  to  evangelicalism  were  rebuked  in  the  following  obser- 
vations :  "  I  find  more  profit  in  sermons  on  either  good  tem- 
pers or  good  works,  than  in  what  are  vulgarly  called  Gospel 
sermons.  That  word  has  now  become  a  mere  cant  word ; 
I  wish  none  of  our  Society  would  use  it.  It  has  no  deter- 
minate  meaning.     Let   but   a   pert,   self-sufficient   animal, 


JOHN  WESLEY  239 

that  has  neither  sense  nor  grace  bawl  out  something  about 
Christ  or  His  blood  or  justification  by  faith  and  his  hearers 
cry  out,  'what  a  fine  Gospel  sermon!'"  In  later  days  he 
wrote  again,  "When  fifty  years  of  age,  my  brother  Charles 
and  I  in  the  simplicity  of  our  hearts  taught  the  people  that 
unless  they  knew  their  sins  forgiven,  they  were  under  the 
wrath  and  curse  of  God,  I  wonder  they  did  not  stone  us. 
The  Methodists  know  better  now."  The  spirit  of  the  New 
Testament  was  nurtured  in  Wesley  by  the  combination  of 
numerous  differing  phases  and  gifts.  Many  streams  fed 
the  mighty  river  of  gracious  influence  which  issued  from 
his  personality,  a  river  still  flowing,  and  bearing  the  life  of 
men  toward  happier  havens  beyond. 

Julia  Wedgwood  in  her  able  study  of  Wesley  states  that 
his  regeneration  transferred  "the  birthday  of  a  Christian  from 
his  baptism  to  his  conversion,  and  in  that  change  the  parti- 
tion line  of  the  two  great  systems  is  crossed."  This  is 
true  so  far  as  characteristic  Wesleyanism  is  concerned,  but 
it  does  not  take  sufficient  account  of  the  significance  of 
the  religious  education  of  the  young,  or  of  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness of  the  Church  universal.  Later  Methodism  has 
been  compelled  to  acknowledge  these  factors  as  in  many 
instances  modifying  the  older  conception  which  limited  con- 
version to  an  immediate  and  pronounced  experience.  Count- 
less hosts  of  Christians  owe  their  faith  to  early  religious 
training,  or  to  the  Sacraments  which  have  undoubtedly 
fostered  it.  These  multitudes  can  neither  be  ignored  nor 
dismissed  by  a  sweeping  generalization.  The  operations 
of  the  Divine  Presence  in  human  hearts  do  not  submit  to 
the  rough  and  ready  assignments  of  man.  "The  wind 
bloweth  where  it  listeth  and  thou  hearest  the  sound  thereof, 
but  knowest  not  whence  it  cometh  and  whither  it  goeth : 
so  is  every  one  that  is  born  of  the  Spirit." 

Such  then  in  outline  was  the  inwardness  of  Wesley's  change 
as  he  published  it  to  the  world,  to  be  read  by  all  who  desire  to 
form  a  sober  judgment  on  this  supreme  issue.     Anything  more 


240      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

restrained  in  temper,  more  cogent  in  statement,  more  per- 
suasive in  appeal,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find.  In  many  respects 
it  is  the  wisest  as  it  is  the  most  impartial  modern  utterance 
that  has  interpreted  Christian  origins  and  Christian  history 
by  Christian  experience .  And  although  some  of  its  suggestions 
/{  may  be  open  to  minor  criticism,  its  value  as  an  apologetic 
and  as  an  eirenicon  Is  beyondLestimate.  It  recalls  the  flame 
from  the  Altar  of  Eternal  Love  which  burned  in  the  breasts 
of  the  Apostles,  the  Fathers,  and  the  Martyrs,  and  afterwards 
burst  forth  again  in  St.  Francis  and  the  heroes  of  the  Refor- 
mation. How  well  it  fulfilled  in  Wesley  the  more  perfect 
will  of  God  is  dispassionately  stated  in  a  further  quotation 
from  Mr,  Lecky :  "  It  is,  however,  scarcely  an  exaggeration 
to  say  that  the  scene  which  took  place  at  that  humble  meet- 
ing in  Aldergate  Street  forms  an  epoch  in  English  history. 
I  The  conviction  which  then  flashed  upon  one  of  the  most 
\  powerful  and  most  active  intellects  in  England  is  the  true 
source  of  English  Methodism "  ^  —  a  judgment  far  too 
modest  in  its  ascription.  That  conviction  set  free  the  reli- 
gious genius  whose  light  flashed  on  England  when  the  moral 
condition  of  her  inhabitants  was  aptly  summarized  in  the 
somber  phrase  of  the  Hebrew  prophet :  "  They  sat  in  dark- 
ness and  the  shadow  of  death."  Yet  neither  England  nor 
English  Methodism  was  the  sole  beneficiary  of  Wesley's 
consecrated  faculties;  his  words  have  gone  out  unto  th^ 
ends  of  the  earth. 

Ill 

The  vile  conditions  for  which  the  eighteenth  century  was 
unenviably  notorious  were  at  their  worst  in  its  second 
quarter,  and  continued  even  after  the  Evangelical  Revival 
had  succeeded  in  abolishing  some  of  their  most  deplorable 
features.  Mark  Pattison  describes  the  age  as  "  one  of  decay 
of  religion,  licentiousness  of  morals,  public  corruption,  pro- 
faneness  of  language,  —  a  day    of   rebuke  and  blasphemy 

^  "  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century  ";  Vol.  Ill,  p.  48. 


JOHN   WESLEY  241 

.  ,  .  an  age  destitute  of  depth  and  earnestness;  an  age 
whose  poetry  was  without  romance,  whose  philosophy  was 
without  insight,  and  whose  pubUc  men  were  without 
character;  an  age  of  'Ught  without  love,'  whose  very 
merits  were  of  the  earth,  earthy."  ^  Since  these  essays 
were  published  in  1860  we  have  learned  to  understand  the 
eighteenth  century  better ;  to  know  that,  despite  the  sordid- 
ness  and  materialism  which  characterized  it,  the  period  was 
not  and  could  not  have  been  wholly  corrupt.  Agents  and 
forces  of  purification  are  always  present  in  every  society, 
however  debased  and  degenerate  that  society  may  seem  to 
be,  and  they  never  cease  to  operate,  though  at  times  too 
far  below  the  surface  for  their  presence  to  be  detected  by 
the  superficial  observer. 

Yet  without  question  the  disorder  of  England  during  the 
years  included  in  Pattison's  survey  was  far-reaching  and 
obstinate.  Professor  Henry  Sidgwick  has  remarked  that 
the  national  character  was  such  as  to  make  belief  in  a  con- 
stitutional government  impossible.  In  the  judgment  of 
wise  and  patriotic  men  absolutism  was  necessary,  because  of 
the  ignorance,  materialism,  and  waywardness  of  the  people. 
The  morality  of  polite  circles  was  content  to  express  itself 
in  epigrams  and  maxims,  while  their  rampant  vices  shel- 
tered behind  these  useless  formulae.  Hume,  in  an  essay 
published  in  1741,  complained  of  the  tyranny  of  political 
factions,  and  concluded  that,  "We  should,  at  last,  after 
many  convulsions  and  civil  wars,  find  repose  in  an  ab- 
solute monarchy,  which  it  would  have  been  happier  for  us 
to  have  established  peaceably  from  the  beginning."  If  we 
may  judge  from  these  and  many  other  authoritative  criti- 
cisms, social  stability  was  by  no  means  assured.  License 
was  too  frequently  mistaken  for  liberty :  the  general  well- 
being  was  hindered  by  those  who  bawled  for  freedom  in 
a  senseless  mood,  and  there  was  a  justifiable  distrust  of  popu- 
lar sentiment.     The  wise  political  instinct  now  attributed 

1  "Essays";  Vol.  II,  p.  42. 


242      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

to  the  British  people,  and  the  actual  establishment  of  civic 
solidarity  and  virtue,  are  far  more  recent  than  is  commonly 
supposed.  Levity,  caprice,  selfishness,  and  turbulence  were 
prevalent.  The  fickleness  and  perversity  of  the  populace, 
which  Milton  in  his  treatise  on  "A  Free  Commonwealth"  re- 
garded as  dangerous,  were  due  in  a  measure  to  the  sourest 
and  narrowest  type  of  Puritanism.  Notwithstanding  the 
short  tenure  of  the  Cromwellian  Protectorate,  the  religious 
enthusiasm  it  generated,  and  the  triumphs  of  peace  and 
war  it  secured,  the  reaction  against  it  flung  aside  morality 
altogether,  and  had  not  spent  its  force  in  Wesley's  day. 
Men  still  spoke  with  detestation  of  the  attempts  to  enforce 
virtue  and  suppress  vice  by  penal  statutes,  and  the  orgies 
of  the  court  of  Charles  the  Second  were  perpetuated  in  the 
dissoluteness  of  the  aristocracy  and  the  degradation  of  the 
masses.  The  reign  of  the  saints  was  succeeded  by  the  revels 
of  the  sinners;  the  profligates  of  the  Restoration  had 
produced  a  progeny  almost  worse  than  themselves,  whose 
cynical  brutalities  it  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate. 
Rational  goodness  seemed  as  impossible  as  art  to  a  nation 
smitten  with  color-blindness.  The  highest  elements  in 
human  existence  were  cast  away;  conduct  drifted  into 
wrong  channels;   conscience  was  defiled;   then  indeed   was 

"Time  a  maniac  scattering  dust, 
And  life  a  fury  slinging  flame." 

Yet  on  the  low  dark  verge  might  be  discerned  the  twilight 
of  a  new  day.  For  there  was  a  saving  remnant  not  unmind- 
ful of  the  honor  of  God,  which  waged  war  on  the  evils  that 
usurped  His  claims,  however  hopeless  the  undertaking  seemed. 
The  earlier  reformers  who  strove  to  stem  the  pestilential 
flood  of  wickedness  voiced  their  anxiety  in  the  words  of  Dr. 
Woodward.  Writing  in  1699,  he  declared,  "Our  great  enjoy- 
ments in  liberty,  law,  trade,  etc.,  are  in  manifest  danger  of 
being  lost  by  those  horrid  enormities  which  have  for  some 
years  past  abounded  in  this  our  nation ;  for  indeed  they  are 


JOHN  WESLEY  243 

gross,  scandalous,  and  crying,  even  to  the  reproach  of  our 
Government  and  the  great  dishonor  of  our  rehgion."  The 
"Proposal  for  a  National  Reformation  of  Manners,"  issued 
in  1694,  anticipated  Woodward's  accusation.  "All  men 
agree,"  states  its  opening  paragraph,  "that  atheism  and  pro- 
faneness  never  got  such  a  high  ascendant  as  at  this  day. 
A  thick  gloominess  hath  overspread  our  horizon  and  our  light 
looks  like  the  evening  of  the  world  .  .  .  vice  and  wickedness 
abound  in  every  place,  drunkenness  and  lewdness  escape 
unpunished;  our  ears  in  most  companies  are  filled  with 
imprecations  of  damnation;  and  the  corners  of  our  streets 
everywhere  the  horrible  sounds  of  oaths,  curses,  and  blas- 
phemous execrations."  ^ 

The  monarchs  of  England  contributed  to  the  deplorable 
state  of  affairs.  Thackeray's  lectures,  "TVip  Fnur  Qpnrgp<;/^ 
show  that  these  princes,  with  the  exception  of  George  III, 
while  less  openly  depraved  than  Charles  II,  were  infinitely 
more  vulgar.  The  novelist's  masterly  portrait  of  the  hero 
of  Dettingen,  —  the  second  George,  a  strutting,  self-impor- 
tant, irascible  little  boor,  who  corrupted  society  by  his 
example  and  coarsened  it  by  his  manners,  —  is  not  a  whit 
overdrawn  in  its  fearless  and  repulsive  delineation.  His 
Queen,  Caroline  of  Anspach,  described  by  Sir  Walter  Scott 
in  "The  Heart  of  Midlothian"  as  a  sagacious  and  attractive 
princess,  although  personally  chaste  and  deserving  of  a  better 
husband  than  the  man  to  whose  puerile  eccentricities  she 
sacrificed  everything,  did  not  hesitate  to  jest  about  his 
paramours  nor  to  indulge  in  obscene  allusions.  The  life 
and  thought  of  the  nation  were  infected  by  this  betrayal  of 
decency  in  high  places :  its  intelligence,  virtue,  and  seemly 
demeanor  were  constantly  discouraged;  its  worst  propensi- 
ties found  their  instigators  among  those  who  were  miscalled 
noble.  In  spite  of  his  loyalty  to  the  throne,  Wesley  felt  and 
avowed  a  healthy  contempt  for  the  upper   classes.      The 

1  Julia  Wedgwood:  "John  Wesley  and  the  Evangelical  Reaction  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century"  ;  pp.  116-117. 


244      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

barriers  which  the  advocates  of  an  empirical  philosophy 
of  cultured  common  sense  strove  to  oppose  against  con- 
tagious vices  were  swept  away  by  passions  which  neither 
the  serene  guidance  of  Addison  nor  the  stern  protest  of 
Johnson  could  withstand.  An  increase  of  wealth  and  trade 
furnished  the  means  for  tasteless  profusion  and  animalistic 
excess.  Folly,  filthy  conversation,  libertinism,  and  gluttony 
were  the  pursuits  of  the  majority.  The  landed  proprietors 
and  the  squirearchies  took  pattern  from  the  reigning  house, 
which  was  sunk  in  debauchery  until  the  accession  of  George 
III,  who  allied  his  court  with  domestic  regularity.  What- 
ever may  be  urged  against  him  as  an  incapable  ruler 
whose  ambition  for  executive  supremacy  ended  in  the  dis- 
memberment of  the  Empire,  in  his  private  character  George 
III  was  well  nigh  irreproachable,  strongly  and  simply  re- 
ligious, given  to  prayer  and  to  observance  of  the  ordinances 
,j  of  the  Church.  Yet  he  and  his  bigoted  consort,  Charlotte 
!  >  of  Mecklenburg-Strelitz,  never  controlled  their  unruly  sons, 
who  mocked  and  defied  the  quiet  ways  of  Windsor,  and 
came  near  to  overthrowing  the  Hanoverian  dynasty  in 
^  Britain. 

The  mania  for  gambling  reached  its  height  during  this 
epoch,  wielding  an  absolute  sway  over  rich  and  poor  alike, 
who  turned  to  its  lure  as  naturally  as  to  food  or  sleep,  and 
viewed  the  hazarding  of  fabulous  sums  as  nothing  worse 
than  an  indiscretion.  Any  vice  which  receives  general 
approval  ceases  to  be  looked  upon  as  such,  and  there  were 
few  who  escaped  the  ruinous  fascinations  of  the  race  track 
and  the  casino.  All  ranks  and  conditions  gambled  pro- 
digiously and  systematically.  "Whist,"  wrote  Walpole  to 
Sir  Horace  Mann,  "has  spread  a  universal  opium  over  the 
whole  nation.  On  whatever  pretext,  and  under  whatever 
circumstances,  half  a  dozen  people  of  fashion  found  them- 
selves together,  whether  for  music,  or  dancing,  or  politics, 
or  for  drinking  the  waters  or  each  other's  wine,  the  box  was 
sure  to  be  rattling  and  the  cards  were  being  cut  and  shuf- 


JOHN  WESLEY  245 

fled."  ^  The  habitues  of  St.  James's  Palace  staked  nothing 
less  than  two  hundred  pounds  apiece  at  their  nightly  play, 
and  when  Lady  Cowper  declined  to  enter  the  game  because 
she  could  not  afford  to  risk  the  wager,  she  was  chided  for 
her  lack  of  courage.  Lord  Ilchester  lost  thirteen  thousand 
pounds  at  one  sitting,  a  debt  of  honor  he  never  paid.  Top- 
ham  Beauclerk,  the  patron  and  friend  of  the  literati  who  met 
in  the  taverns  of  Fleet  Street  and  the  Strand,  declared  that 
the  extremities  to  which  Charles  James  Fox  was  reduced 
after  he  had  parted  with  his  last  guinea  were  pitiable  beyond 
words.  Before  this  orator  and  statesman  was  twenty-four, 
he  had  incurred  gambling  debts  to  the  amount  of  five 
hundred  thousand  pounds,  more  than  a  fifth  of  which 
sum  represented  the  losses  of  one  evening;  and  during 
his  lifetime  he  squandered  a  million  pounds  in  the  same 
pursuit.  Instead  of  being  sobered  by  such  wild  exploits. 
Fox  jested  about  them  and  referred  to  the  anteroom  where 
his  Hebrew  creditors  waited  to  negotiate  his  paper  as  the 
Jerusalem  Chamber.  White's  Coffee  House  was  one  of 
the  favorite  resorts  of  those  who  courted  the  smile  of  the 
goddess  of  chance.  Mr.  Thynne  won  twelve  thousand 
pounds  there  in  one  night.  Beau  Brummel  is  said  to  have 
won  twenty  thousand,  and  General  Scott  one  hundred  thou- 
sand pounds  in  the  same  place  at  a  single  sitting.  Nor  were 
these  instances  extraordinary ;  in  proportion  to  their  means 
the  majority  of  gamblers  were  equally  profuse. 

The, State  patronized  lotteries  until  near  the  close  of  the 
century;  the  mischief  whicIT" ensued  passes  description. 
Great  numbers  of  people  were  beggared  in  mind  and  body ; 
the  havoc  among  the  tradesfolk,  farmers,  and  artisans  was 
greater  than  can  now  be  imagined :  they  were  in  every 
sense  demoralized.  The  racing  towns  of  Epsom  and  New- 
market swarmed  with  sharpers,  blacklegs,  and  their  dupes. 
Loaded    dice,  fullams,    and    other   apparatus   for   trickery 

1  Sir  George  O.  Trevelyao:  "Early  History  of  Charles  James  Fox"; 
p.  89. 


246      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

were  carried  in  the  pockets,  caps,  and  sleeves  of  these 
knights  of  the  craft,  who  viewed  their  calHng  as  the  industry 
of  the  age.  The  financial  speculations  of  Exchange  Alley 
victimized  thousands  rendered  gullible  by  the  national  pur- 
suit. No  project  was  too  ridiculous  to  win  support.  The 
place  was  filled,  according  to  Smollett,  "  with  a  strange  con- 
course of  statesmen  and  clergymen,  churchmen  and  dis- 
senters, Whigs,  and  Tories,  physicians,  lawyers,  tradesmen, 
and  even  females;  all  other  professions  and  employments 
were  utterly  neglected."  Companies  were  formed  for  dis- 
counting pensions,  insuring  horses,  providing  perpetual 
motion,  discovering  the  land  of  Ophir,  and  for  the  manifestly 
superfluous  enterprise  of  improving  the  breed  of  asses.  Even 
when  that  bloated  venture,  the  South  Sea  Bubble,  burst 
and  reduced  thousands  to  poverty  and  despair,  the  madness 
received  no  perceptible  check.  Fresh  devotees  consigned 
their  fortunes  to  greedy  schemers ;  estates,  heirships,  trust 
funds,  even  chastity  and  life,  were  flung  into  the  insatiable 
maw  of  this  iniquity.  The  players  plunged  w^ithout  stint, 
laying  all  they  had  or  could  obtain  upon  the  board,  while 
they  watched  the  turns  of  the  game  with  oaths  and  im- 
precations. Flown  with  wine  and  rendered  desperate  by 
their  losses  or  their  lust  for  gain,  men  without  conscience 
or  honor  quarreled  and  fought,  and  satisfaction  was  de- 
manded and  given  in  numerous  duels  which  became  infamous 
for  that  vulturous  ferocity  peculiar  to  the  confirmed  gambler. 
Until  Garrick  revived  the  Shakesperian  traditions,  the 
stag^e  was  monopolized  by  farces  and  spectacles  of  which 
Congreve,  Wycherley,  and  Vanbrugh  were  the  chief  pur- 
veyors. Their  ribald  comedies  suited  current  taste  by 
exalting  pruriency  and  laughing  the  marriage  vow  out  of 
fashion.  The  scenes  reeked  of  the  stews ;  rakes  and  deb- 
auchees were  heroes ;  skepticism  of  any  possible  virtue, 
especially  between  the  sexes,  was  paraded  with  sickening 
reiteration.  The  dialogues  took  it  for  granted  that  there 
was  an  essential  antagonism  between  what  was  moral  and 


JOHN   WESLEY  247 

what  was  witty  and  admirable.  Fielding,  who  was  by  no 
means  fastidious  about  such  matters,  makes  Parson  Adams 
say  in  "Joseph  Andrews"  he  had  never  heard  of  any  plays 
that  were  fit  to  read  except  Addison's  "Cato"  and  Dicky 
Steele's  somewhat  prosy  "Conscious  Lovers."  The  obser- 
vation is  corroborated  by  the  fact  that  ladies  wore  masks 
at  the  theaters,  a  custom  which  lasted  until  long  after  the 
accession  of  George  III.  Tragedies  were  filled  with  tedious 
declamations  upon  the  flagrant  crimes  of  the  classic  monsters 
of  Greece  and  Rome,  which  made  little  appeal  to  the  mind 
and  less  to  the  heart.  This  repression  of  the  deeper  emotions 
was  inimical  to  the  higher  drama :  instead  of  envisaging 
the  sacredness  of  human  fate,  resolution,  and  endurance,  it 
languished  in  the  unrealities  of  finely  polished  couplets  and 
rhetorical  bravado.  Yet  these  disadvantages  could  not 
prevent  the  triumph  of  David  Garrick's  inimitable  genius 
as  an  actor,  nor  were  they  incompatible  with  the  develop- 
ment of  a  delightful  and  masterly  series  of  comedies  from 
those  two  genial  Irishmen,  Sheridan  and  Goldsmith,  whose 
treatment  of  the  lighter  aspects  of  life  did  something  to 
redeem  wantonness  and  intellectual  sterility.  The  fourth 
Earl  of  Chesterfield,  a  pattern  of  etiquette,  inculcated 
an  exquisite  bearing  and  address  which  was  the  cloak 
for  a  refined  impurity  much  more  detrimental  to  morals 
than  the  salacious  frankness  of  Fielding  or  the  grossness  of 
Smollett.  Historians  may  willingly  accord  him  posthumous 
justice  as  an  able,  careful,  conscientious  statesman  who  de- 
served well  of  his  country  and  despised  bribery  by  money  or 
preferment  in  an  unscrupulous  era  when  Sir  Robert  Wal- 
pole  surveyed  the  benches  of  the  House  of  Commons  and 
declared  "All  these  men  have  their  price."  Chesterfield 
was  not  only  the  representative  of  his  class ;  he  was  also 
a  patron  of  literature,  and  in  a  lesser  degree  an  author  of 
some  merit.  In  the  former  capacity  his  lack  of  generosity 
provoked  Johnson  into  writing  one  of  the  best  letters  of  the 
language;    in  the  latter,  his  lack  of  virtue  induced  him  to 


248      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

instruct  his  son  in  the  arts  of  intrigue,  seduction,  and 
adultery  as  accomplishments  highly  becoming  a  gentleman. 
Women  of  rank  appeared  at  private  functions  and  in  public 
places  of  entertainment  clad  in  the  scantiest  garb,  and  far 
from  incurring  disapproval,  their  immodesty  was  applauded. 
Drunksimess  was  an  established  custom,  with  a  code  of  regu- 
lations which  decreed  the  order  of  merit  for  the  bibulous,  and 
arranged  the  incessant  rounds  of  wine  and  wit,  punch  bowl 
and  song.  The  Prince  Regent,  hailed  by  his  boon  com- 
panions and  flatterers  as  the  first  gentleman  in  Europe, 
caroused  nightly  with  Sheridan,  Grattan,  and  other  celeb- 
rities of  the  Carlton  House  coterie.  He  conspired  with 
his  brothers  —  those  stout,  well-fed  princes  whose  farmer- 
like faces  look  down  upon  the  visitor  from  the  walls  of  Eng- 
land's Portrait  Galleries  —  to  make  her  premier  noble,  the 
Duke  of  Norfolk,  drink  a  toast  with  every  seasoned  toper  at 
the  royal  board.  Norfolk  would  not  refuse  the  challenge, 
and  the  debauch  went  on  till  the  aged  Duke's  gray  head  lay 
stupefied  among  the  decanters  while  the  wine  ran  like  blood 
on  the  table.  Lord  Eldon  was  a  six  bottle  man,  as  were 
other  legal  and  political  luminaries ;  William  Pitt  emptied 
a  bottle  of  port  wine  at  home  before  going  to  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  after  the  debates  betook  himself  to  Bellamy's 
with  Dundas  and  helped  to  finish  a  couple  more.  Addison, 
Steele,  Poulteney,  Goldsmith,  Fox,  and  Lord  Holland  were 
all  addicted  to  the  cup.  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot,  writing  to  his 
wife  in  1787,  said,  "Men  of  all  ages  drink  abominably  .  .  . 
and  Gray  more  than  any  of  them."  The  beaux  of  the  town, 
known  as  "frolics,"  "bloods,"  "mohocks"  and  "macaronies," 
consumed  large  quantities  of  fermented  liquor.  Byron's 
letters  contain  references  to  the  sprees  of  Cambridge  profes- 
sors and  students,  and  he  informed  his  friend  Jackson,  the 
pugilist,  of  the  masquerades  at  Newstead  Abbey,  where 
goblets  fashioned  out  of  human  skulls  were  quaffed  by  young 
scapegraces  attired  in  monastic  robes.  Ministers  of  State 
reeled  to  their  places  in  Parliament  or  at  the  opera,  and  some- 


JOHN   WESLEY  249 

times  even  clergymen,  with  their  wigs  awry,  went  to  the 
sacred  desk  to  hiccough  in  the  pauses  of  their  discourse. 

Routs,  assembhes,  balls  and  ridottos  were  thronged  with 
fashionable  patrons;  Vauxhall  and  Ranelagh  gardens  were 
frequented  by  the  upper  and  rniddle  classes.  The  Spectator 
describes  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley's  visit  to  the  former  resort, 
then  one  of  the  sights  of  the  metropolis,  which  the  good  knight 
enjoyed  when  he  came  up  from  Worcestershire.  Between 
the  social  extremes  were  the  territorial  proprietors  who 
shared  in  the  common  decadence.  The  local  magnates, 
parsons,  and  magistrates  of  the  shires,  with  their  isolation, 
ignorance,  pride,  static  politics,  uncouth  speech,  and  rustic 
garb,  furnished  material  for  the  satire  of  the  novelists  and 
the  moralizing  of  the  essayists.  It  was  an  epoch  of  hilarious 
feasting,  fiddling,  dancing,  and  buffoonery :  in  many  aspects 
unmanly,  imbecile,  and  pitiable.  The  wreck  of  talent, 
the  untimely  ending  of  individuals  who  might  have  been 
shining  lights  in  a  perverse  generation,  but  who  left  noth- 
ing except  painful  memories  of  needless  error  and  suffering, 
fill  the  observer  with  a  sense  of  irreparable  loss.  The  hope 
of  the  nation's  redemption  lay  in  the  best  of  the  clergy, 
the  merchants,  and  the  yeomanry,  and  from  their  ranks  came 
the  leaders  of  Methodism,  who  supported  Wesley  in  his 
efforts  to  reclaim  the  debased  multitudes. 

These  neglected  hordes  were  exactly  what  the  ruling  powers 
had  made  them.  Had  those  who  exercised  civil  and  religious 
authority  been  wise  and  just,  pure  in  life,  sincere  in  motive, 
and  honorable  in  their  dealings,  the  proletariat  would 
undoubtedly  have  felt  the  restraint  of  their  example.  But 
such  virtues  were  far  to  seek,  while  the  vices  we  have  noted 
spread  in  virulent  form  among  the  workmen  and  peasants.^ 

>  The  editor  of  the  Gloucester  Gazette  wrote :  "  la  it  not  mysterious  that 
gambling  which  has  been  known  to  bring  calamity  on  the  greatest  and  rich- 
est men  should  now  become  common  among  the  common  people  them- 
selves?" Piety  and  gentleness  must  have  lived  in  the  shade.  Brutality 
flourished  in  the  daylight.  Public  executions  and  whippings  were  every- 
day  spectacles ;     bull-baiting,   dog-fighting,    and   duck-hunting  ■ —  the   last 


250      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

Gin  was  the  chosen  beverage  of  the  great  unwashed,  out- 
bidding ale,  porter,  rum,  and  brandy  in  competition  for 
popular  favor.  Hogarth's  pictures  of  Beer  Street  and  Gin 
Lane  were  delineations  of  the  neighborhoods  of  St.  IMartin's 
and  St.  Giles.  The  first  represented  John  Bull  engaged 
in  his  national  pastime,  when  the  butcher,  the  drayman,  and 
the  blacksmith  drained  their  foaming  tankards,  flourished 
a  prime  leg  of  mutton,  and  sang  in  praise  of  beer : 

"Labor  and  art,  upheld  by  thee, 
Successfully  advance, 
We  quaff  the  balmy  juice  with  glee. 
And  water  leave  to  France." 

In  contrast  to  this  scene  of  counterfeit  merriment  was  the 
nauseating  squalor  of  Gin  Lane,  where  human  nature,  naked 
and  unashamed,  wallowed  in  the  depths  of  bestiality.  The 
artist  vented  his  wrath  on  the  cursed  fiend,  with  murder 
fraught,  which  preyed  on  the  vitals  of  his  countrymen. 
Nothing  in  his  terrific  arraignment  of  contemporary  immo- 
rality was  more  awful  in  its  fidelity  than  the  portrayal  of 
that  scene  where  old  and  young,  and  even  mothers  with 
infants  in  arms,  greedily  drank  the  potations  doled  out  in 
return  for  their  coppers.  During  a  debate  on  the  question 
of  drunkenness  in  1736,  it  was  reported  to  Parliament  that 
within  the  precincts  of  Westminster,  Holborn,  the  Tower, 
and  Finsbury  there  were  over  seven  thousand  houses  and 
shops  which  retailed  spirituous  beverages,  —  and  this  in  a 
city  which  then  contained  only  600,000  inhabitants,  of 
whom  over  one  fifth  were  directly  interested  in  the  traffic. 

two  during  service-time  on  Sundays  —  were  usual.  Reputable  Londoners 
made  it  their  Sunday  afternoon  amusement  to  repair  with  their  families 
to  the  Old  Bethlehem  Hospital,  to  watch  the  maniacs  who  were  chained 
naked  to  the  pillars.  At  this  time  some  two  hundred  thousand  persons 
usually  gathered  in  tea-gardens  about  London  every  Sunday  afternoon,  and 
at  the  end  of  the  day  they  were  to  be  classified  thus:  "Sober,  50,000;  in 
High  Glee,  90,000 ;  Drunkish,  30,000 ;  Staggering  Tipsy,  10,000  ;  Muzzy, 
15,000;  Dead  Drunk,  5,000."  In  every  circle  of  life  it  was  unusual  for  a 
party  to  disperse  while  one  masculine  member  of  it  was  sober. 


JOHN   WESLEY  251 

Distilleries  and  breweries  increased  apace,  and  Mr.  Lecky 
states  that,  small  as  is  the  place  which  gin-drinking  occupies 
in  English  history,  it  was  probably,  if  all  the  consequences 
that  flowed  from  it  are  considered,  the  most  disastrous  prac- 
tice in  the  eighteenth  century.^  Painted  boards  were  sus- 
pended from  the  door  of  almost  every  seventh  house,  invit- 
ing the  poor  to  get  intoxicated  for  a  penny,  and  dead  drunk 
for  twopence ;  straw  whereon  to  lie  being  provided  without 
charge  until  they  had  slept  off  the  effects  of  the  first  debauch 
and  were  ready  to  start  afresh.  Dr.  Benson,  Bishop  of 
Gloucester,  writing  from  Westminster  to  Bishop  Berkeley 
of  Cloyne  on  February  18,  1752,  says,  "Your  lordship  calls 
this  the  freest  country  in  Europe.  There  is  indeed  freedom 
of  one  kind  in  it  ...  a  most  unbounded  licentiousness  of 
all  sorts  ...  a  regard  to  nothing  but  diversion  and  vicious 
pleasures.  .  .  .  Our  people  are  now  become,  what  they 
never  were  before,  cruel.  Those  accursed  spirituous  liquors 
which,  to  the  shame  of  our  Government,  are  so  easily  to  be 
had,  and  in  such  quantities  drunk,  have  changed  the  very 
nature  of  our  people.  And  they  will,  if  continued  to  be 
drunk,  destroy  the  very  race  of  the  people  themselves."  ^ 
Life  and  property  were  menaced  by  this  waste  of  soul 
and  substance :  thugs  and  footpads,  recruited  from  bagnios 
and  taverns,  were  quick  to  take  advantage  of  the  unpro- 
tected condition  of  society.  Armed  with  murderous  weapons 
they  sallied  forth  at  dusk  from  their  hiding  places  and  skulked 
in  dismal  alleys  or  on  the  heaths,  to  rob  wayfarers  and 
travelers,  beating  or  killing  those  who  resisted  them.  The 
Strand  and  Covent  Garden  were  infested  by  these  ruffians, 
and  mail  coaches  were  liable  to  be  held  up  on  Hounslow 
Heath,  Gad's  Hill,  or  any  other  open  space.  Fraternities 
of  criminals  banded  together  under  names  which  indicated 


1  "England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century  "  ;  Vol.  II,  p.  101.  See  also  "  Mem- 
oirs of  William  Hickey  (1749-1775)";    edited  by  Alfred  Spencer. 

»  W.  C.  Sydney :  "England  and  the  English  in  the  Eighteenth  Century"  ; 
pp.  62-63. 


252      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

their  various  depredations;  some  were  driven  to  theft  by 
poverty,  many  more  preferred  it  to  work,  not  a  few  esteemed 
it  a  chivalrous  occupation.  James  Maclean,^  the  "gentle- 
man highwayman,"  and  others  of  his  kidney,  after  they  had 
lost  their  all  in  pursuit  of  pleasure  and  lust,  took  to  the 
road  with  horse,  mask,  cutlass,  and  pistols.  Cavaliers  of 
plunder  invested  its  sordid  realities  with  a  fictitious  romance, 
and  had  a  doggerel  of  their  own,  vended  ever;>^vhere,  and 
especially  at  the  foot  of  the  gallows,  where  they  paid  the 
penalty  for  their  misdeeds.  The  adventures  of  Jack  Shep- 
pard  and  Dick  Turpin,  who  were  better  known  to  the  aver- 
age Englishman  than  any  other  heroes  of  the  hangman's 
rope,  were  chanted  in  alehouses  by  admiring  yokels,  and 
roared  in  drunken  chorus  on  the  streets.  The  criminal 
code  was  a  ferocious  and  sanguinary  legal  instrument.  Sir 
Samuel  Romilly,  who  commands  the  admiration  of  poster- 
ity for  the  enlightened  principles  of  legislative  justice  and 
mercy  he  advocated,  on  reviewing  it,  said,  "The  first  thing 
which  strikes  one  is  the  melancholy  truth  that  among  the 
variety  of  actions  which  men  are  daily  liable  to  commit  no 
less  than  one  hundred  and  sixty  have  been  declared  by  Act 
of  Parliament  to  be  felonies  without  benefit  of  clergy ;  or 
in  other  words,  to  be  worthy  of  instant  death."  Yet,  un- 
deterred by  this  Draconian  severity,  crime  was  outrageous 
and  incessant ;  the  jails  were  filled  with  criminals  awaiting 
transportation  to  the  penal  colonies  or  the  cart  that  should 
convey  them  to  Tyburn ;  the  frequent  public  executions  at 
Newgate  and  at  the  county  towns  were  occasions  for  a 
*  junketing.  Men  who  owed  a  few  pounds  they  were  unable 
to  pay  languished  in  the  Fleet  Prison ;  women  were  hanged 
for  petty  thefts.^     All  that  has  been  aflBrmed  here  can  be 

1  Also  spelt  Maclaine,  or  Macleane. 

2  Evea  Oxford  students  suffered  the  extreme  penalty.  Dr.  Routh  (born 
in  1756,  died  in  1855)  had  seen  this.  "What,  Sir,  do  you  tell  me,  Sir, 
that  you  never  heard  of  Gownman's  Gallows?  Why,  I  tell  you.  Sir,  that 
I  have  seen  the  undergraduates  hanged  on  Gownman's  Gallows  in  Holywell 
—  hanged.  Sir,  for  highway  robbery."  A.  D.  Godley :  "Oxford  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century"  ;   p.  35. 


JOHN   WESLEY  253 

verified  from  the  pages  of  Gay,  Walpole,  Fielding,  and 
Smollett;  from  the  Newgate  Calendar,  the  columns  of  the 
Spectator,  the  Tatler,  the  Ledger,  the  London  Evening, 
and  from  the  caricatures  of  Gillray  and  the  pictures  of 
Hogarth. 

The  testimony  of  these  authors,  journalists,  and  artists 
was  largely  limited  to  London,  because  there  the  Court,  the 
Government,  the  social  dictatorship,  much  of  the  wealth 
and  one  tenth  of  the  population  of  the  country  were  located. 
But  in  the  provinces  and  agricultural  districts  a  similar  state 
of  affairs  prevailed ;   indeed,  Wesley  regarded  the  rural  peas- 
antry as  the  most  inaccessible  of  all  the  laboring  classes. 
The  legislator  and  the  moralist  left  HjQdge  out  of  their  calcu- 
lations, and  there  seemed  to  be  no  remedy  for  his  senseless 
antagonism   to    new    conditions.     Corrupt    and    contented, 
his  daily  life  was  a  dull,  sullen,  insensate  round,  his  lot  a 
bitter    inheritance    of   deprivation   and    practical    serfdom. 
Many  of  the  agrarian  wrongs  which  had  enraged  the  insur- 
gents of  the  fourteenth  century  were  still  in  existence,^  and 
even  now  the  backward  condition  of  these  people  is  a  social 
problem    aggravated    by    their    conservatism    and    apathy. 
The   more    active    spirits    among    them    migrated    to    the 
towns,  and  settled  in  congested  spots  which  bred  a  general 
depravity.     The  miners  of  Cornwall,  the  potters  of  North 
Staffordshire,  the  colliers  of  South  Staffordshire,  Shropshire, 
Newcastle,  Yorkshire,  and  the  Forest  of  Dean,  the  stock- 
ingers  of  Northampton,  and  the  weavers  of  Lancashire,  were    / 
at  once  the  most  unruly  and  the  most  promising  workmen  ,' 
of  England.     Their  moral  deterioration  was  so  marked  that  / 
respectable    members    of    the    community    despised    them,  I 
oblivious  of  the  fact  that  they  had  been  denied  those  pri-l 
mary  elements  and  means  of  knowledge  which  human  beings ' 
have  a  right  to  expect  and  acquire.     The  character  of  these 

1  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  state  of  the  English  peasantry  was  worse  at  this 
time  (1760-1820)  than  during  the  Middle  Ages,  owing  to  the  incloaure  of 
the  common  lands  and  the  injustice  and  hardship  that  this  wrought. 


254      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

men  and  women  was  in  the  main  shaped  by  the  circumstances 
in  which  they  were  placed  and  the  laws  by  which  they  were 
governed.  When  these  changed  they  changed,  and  notwith- 
standing their  faults  and  profligacies  they  were  at  all  times 
vital  and  responsive.  Physical  standards  of  manhood 
inured  them  to  the  hardships  of  the  coalpit  and  the  forge. 
The  wake  and  the  fair  were  the  occasions  for  their  dissipa- 
tion, affording  them  relief  after  exhausting  labors  which 
humiliated  the  body  and  apparently  canceled  the  last  traces 
of  humanity  in  the  soul.  Employers,  enriched  by  their 
exertions,  demanded  from  them  an  unremitting  toil  which 
benumbed  their  intellectual  life  and  flung  them  back  into 
paganism.  Anything  which  could  uplift  them  was  either 
forgotten  or  scouted ;  when  released  from  work  they  were 
left  at  the  mercy  of  their  animal  instincts,  the  reckless  indul- 
gence of  which,  as  their  only  means  of  recreation,  made  them 
thenceforth  impatient  of  moral  restraint.  The  heartlessness 
and  avarice  of  the  masters  and  the  crushing  slavery  of  the 
workers  were  a  monstrous  contradiction  of  New  Testament 
teaching  in  a  nominally  Christian  land.  The  larger  part  of 
the  inhabitants  of  the  mining  and  manufacturing  districts 
were  without  hope,  because  they  were  without  God.^  The 
few  lived  at  the  expense  of  the  many.  Pay  day  was  preceded 
by  semi-starvation  and  followed  by  a  saturnalia.  The  agents 
and  managers  of  the  pits  and  factories  were  not  infrequently 
owners  or  lessees  of  adjoining  taverns  where  they  practically 
confiscated  the  hard-earned  pittance  of  the  workmen,  who 
must  perforce  spend  it  there  or  suffer  for  their  abstinence. 
Dog-fighting,  cock-fighting,  pigeon-homing,  and  bouts  of 
fisticuffs  were  interspersed  with  horse-racing  and  bull-baiting. 
Almost  any  place  that  could  muster  a  sufficiently  profitable 
crowed  to  witness  the  latter  spectacle  provided  accommoda- 
tion for  it,  and  one  of  the  squares  of  the  city  of  Birmingham 

'  Notwithstanding  the  increase  in  population  of  manufacturing  centers, 
few  new  parishes  had  been  created.  The  State  Church  was  so  inflexible 
that  it  was  difficult  to  adapt  it  to  these  growing  needs. 


JOHN   WESLEY  255 

still  retains  the  name  of  the  Bull  Ring.  The  Weekly  Journal 
for  June  9,  1716,  advertised  that  a  bear-baiting  to  the  death, 
with  bull-baiting  in  addition,  would  begin  at  3  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon,  as  the  sport  promised  to  be  lengthy;  a  wild 
bull  was  also  to  be  released  with  fireworks  all  over  its  body. 
Nameless  torturings  and  mutilations  were  necessary  in  order 
to  attract  the  largest  gatherings.  Sometimes,  to  the  huge 
relish  of  on-lookers,  a  cat  was  tied  to  the  bull's  tail ;  and  the 
delight  of  the  mob  knew  no  bounds  when  an  unfortunate 
wight  was  tossed  by  the  frantic  beast. 

A  well  known  resort  of  those  who  matched  game  cocks 
armed  with  steel  spurs,  was  found  in  Bird  Cage  Walk,  under 
the  shadow  of  Westminster  Abbey.  It  was  here  that 
Hogarth  sketched  the  outline  for  his  picture  "The  Cockpit," 
painted  in  1759,  although  he  might  have  obtained  material 
anywhere,  since  cock-pits  were  common,  even  at  the  public 
schools,  and  patronized  by  all  classes.  Some  mains  lasted 
three  days,  and  not  less  than  two  or  three  hundred  birds 
were  killed.  The  church  bells  had  been  known  to  ring 
a  merry  peal  when  town  or  county  secured  the  coveted 
prize.  The  names  of  famous  pugilists  were  household 
words :  their  portraits  were  found  in  the  gun-rooms  of  the 
wealthy,  the  students'  haunts  at  the  Universities,  and  on 
the  walls  of  the  coaching  hostelries  and  taverns.  Matches 
were  arranged  by  the  nobility  and  gentry,  who  presented 
belts  bestudded  with  gold  to  the  successful  combatants. 
Even  royalty  did  not  disdain  the  prize  ring  when  some  first- 
rate  exponent  of  "the  manly  art  of  self  defense"  occupied 
the  arena,  and  it  is  on  record  that  the  House  of  Commons 
adjourned  on  February  27,  1770,  to  attend  a  contest  at  Car- 
lisle House  in  Soho.  The  gilded  youth  of  Piccadilly  and  Pall 
Mall  aspired  to  fistic  honors,  and  lent  their  countenance  to 
any  likely  lad  for  the  companionship.  Men,  and  sometimes 
women,  delirious  with  drink  and  deviltry,  circled  around  the 
half-naked  pugilists,  urging  them  forward  and  betting 
excitedly  on  the  outcome.     Comment  on  such  despotisms 


256     THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

of  fleshly  lust  is  unnecessary:  suflSce  it  to  say  that  they 
further  enchained  the  hapless  masses  which  the  rise  of  indus- 
trialism in  towns  and  cities  had  already  brought  under  its 
dominion.  The  people,  who  delved  into  every  other  abyss 
before  they  reached  that  of  the  grave,  literally  perished  for 
lack  of  knowledge. 

Yet  any  survey  of  eighteenth  century  England  from  the 
ethical  standpoint  should  not  fail  to  emphasize  the  good 
qualities  which  lay  dormant  beneath  such  riot  and  confu- 
sion. Because  some  annalists  have  neglected  to  do  this, 
their  accounts,  while  true  as  to  facts,  are  misleading  in  im- 
port. He  would  be  an  unscientific  hydrographer  who  should 
describe  the  ocean  in  nothing  more  than  terms  of  its  surface 
calms,  its  currents,  its  storms,  and  tempests.  Beneath  these 
lie  silent  depths,  the  reservoirs  of  its  life  and  power,  in  which 
are  contained  the  remnants  of  past  ages  and  all  those  forms 
of  recurring  sanitation  and  renewed  existence  that  help  to 
preserve  the  habitable  globe.  The  illustration  applies  to 
humanity  in  any  period,  and  especially  in  such  an  age  as 
Wesley's,  which,  apparently  so  impotent,  in  reality  had  a 
decided  capacity  for  regeneration.  There  has  always  been 
virtue  enough  in  the  world  when  there  has  been  sufficient 
religious  earnestness  to  call  it  forth,  and  always  religious 
earnestness  enough  when  there  were  strong  convictions  to 
arouse  it.  Individual  and  social  conduct  may  be  reprobate 
when  acting  under  the  governance  of  swiftly  succeeding 
passions  of  the  baser  sort,  but  it  still  has  to  reckon  with 
those  fundamental  laws  of  soul  and  conscience  and  with 
those  necessities  of  character  upon  which  the  making  of 
Christian  civilization  depends.  The  impressionist  can  find 
abundant  social  phenomena  in  the  days  of  the  Georges  to 
justify  pessimistic  conclusions,  but  he  should  correct  his 
observations  by  extending  them  to  the  eras  that  went  be- 
fore and  came  after.  The  very  wickedness  of  the  period 
furnished  opportunities  for  the  evangelist  and  the  reformer. 
Faith  had  the  last  word,  and  during  the  dreary  interval 


JOHN   WESLEY  257 

the  few  who  held  fast  the  beginning  of  their  confidence 
without  wavering  had  the  consolation  that 

"Power  is  with  us  in  the  night 
Which  makes  the  darkness  and  the  light, 
And  dwells  not  in  the  hght  alone." 

Past  and  future  had  large  interests  at  stake  in  the  eighteenth 
century :  and  where  such  interests  are  found  their  rights 
and  claims  must  eventually  be  asserted.  More  powerful 
than  all  else  was  the  unchanging  truth  that  one  Image  is 
indelibly  engraven  on  the  mind  of  Christendom  :  the  Christ 
who  reveals  the  Father  in  all  times  and  to  all  His  children 
was  still  present  with  His  scattered  flock.  Those  who  felt 
the  inward  strivings  of  divine  monition  still  heard  His  voice 
and  followed  Him.  Wherever  any  resemblance  to  the  great 
Original  was  perceptible  in  ideals  of  charity  and  deeds  of 
sacrifice,  there  the  most  lawless  were  subdued  and  paid  a 
becoming  reverence.  The  Spirit  of  the  Eternal  brooded 
then,  as  He  ever  does,  over  the  social  abyss,  to  dispel  its 
apathy  and  illuminate  its  gloom.  Merchants,  miners,  and 
artisans  were  mysteriously  prepared  by  His  offices  to  receive 
the  message  and  mission  of  Whitefield  and  Wesley.  After 
the  long  dearth  of  nearly  a  hundred  years  their  preaching 
was  as  grateful  to  these  hearers  as  the  return  of  spring. 
Amidst  every  facility  that  could  be  given  to  treacherous 
and  ignoble  traits,  and  to  leaders  in  State  or  Church  who 
seldom  manifested  any  moral  apprehension  or  spiritual 
desire,  the  revival  of  religion  was  born  from  above,  to 
strengthen  the  sinews  and  the  heart  of  England.  It  re- 
kindled, as  already  observed,  her  consciousness  of  God,  and 
prevented  her  from  political  and  social  revolution.  The 
first  result  was  a  primal  and  an  unmixed  blessing,  the 
second  was  by  no  means  without  qualifications,  —  although, 
in  view  of  the  enormities  of  the  French  uprising,  which  yet 
rendered  signal  service  in  shattering  the  corrupt  traditions 
of  the  century  and  in  punishing  its  luxury,  frivolity,  and 


258      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

oppression,  it  was  perhaps  salutary  for  Europe  that  England 
should  have  maintained  her  ancient  constitutional  polity. 
When  in  the  rush  of  these  fearful  events  the  first  Napoleon 
climbed  to  power,  and,  to  quote  Lord  Rosebery,  "his 
genius  had  enlarged  indefinitely  the  scope  of  human  con- 
ception and  possibility,"  it  was  the  resilient  strength  of 
the  United  Kingdom  which  clashed  with  his  boundless 
ambition.  Aided  by  the  reaction  of  his  stupendous  gifts, 
she  defeated  the  final  efforts  of  the  conqueror  who  had 
carried  the  faculties  of  war  and  administration  to  their  far- 
thest point  and  held  a  continent  in  awe.  Few  severer  tests 
could  be  imposed  on  any  people  than  those  which  Britons 
then  met  and  satisfied.  The  outcome  goes  beyond  the  period 
with  which  we  are  directly  concerned,  but  its  causes  belong 
there.  Certainly  the  statesmanship  of  Pitt  and  Burke, 
Clive's  conquest  of  India,  the  campaigns  of  Moore  and 
Wellington,  and  the  naval  victories  of  Hood  and  Nelson, 
regained  in  the  East  the  prestige  which  had  been  lost  in  the 
West,  and  Great  Britain  never  stood  so  high  in  the  councils 
of  the  world  as  after  Waterloo.  That  the  Evangelical  Re- 
vival was  one  of  the  chief  factors  in  evoking  and  conserving 
the  solidarity  and  discipline  of  the  forces  thus  engaged  can- 
not be  seriously  gainsaid;  and,  although  domestic  reforms 
were  too  long  postponed,  eventually  they  could  not  be  re- 
strained. The  same  trustworthy  reserves  of  character  which 
had  furnished  Wesleyanism  with  its  constituencies,  defended 
the  Homeland  from  invasion,  and  extended  the  boundaries 
of  the  Empire,  also  helped  to  secure  the  social  advantages 
which  have  never  ceased  to  accrue  to  English  democracy. 


CHAPTER  VII 
CONFLICT  AND  VICTORY 


259 


Let  not  that  image  fade. 
Ever,  O  God !  from  out  the  minds  of  men. 
Of  him,  Thy  messenger  and  stainless  priest. 
In  a  brute,  sodden,  and  unfaithful  time, 
Early  and  late,  o'er  land  and  sea,  on-driven ; 
In  youth,  in  eager  manhood,  age  extreme  — 
Driven  on  forever,  back  and  forth  the  world, 
By  that  divine,  omnipotent  desire. 

RiCHAKD  Watson  Gilder  :  Ode  to  Wesley. 


260 


CHAPTER   VII 

CONFLICT   AND   VICTORY 

Political  development  of  England  in  the  eighteenth  century  —  Liter- 
ature of  the  period  —  Increasing  prosperity  of  the  country  —  EngUsh 
religious  thought  rationalistic  in  tone  —  Adherence  to  Locke  —  Con- 
flict between  orthodoxy  and  deism  —  Loss  of  spirituality  in  the  Church 
caused  by  undue  insistence  on  rationalizing  —  Clergy  of  the  Estab- 
lishment not  entirely  to  blame  —  Their  poverty  —  Decadence  of  Dis- 
sent —  Spiritual  awakenings  in  England  and  Scotland  prior  to  Wesley 
—  Wesley's  visit  to  Herrnhut  —  Christian  David  —  Warburton  and 
Wesley  —  George  Whitefield  —  His  field  preaching  —  Wesley  joins 
Whitefield  —  John  Nelson's  description  of  Wesley's  labors  —  Emotional 
outbursts  consequent  on  Wesley's  preaching  —  Clerical  opponents  — 
Bishops  Gibson,  Lavington,  and  Warburton  —  Wesley's  relation  to 
the  Establishment  —  Popular  outbreaks  against  the  Methodists. 


The  British  dominions  expanded  rapidly  during  Wesley's 
lifetime,  their  growth  being  due  to  the  colonizing  and  com- 
mercial activities  of  Englishmen  and  also  to  their  numerous 
conflicts  with  France.  Sixty-four  of  the  one-hundred  and 
twenty-six  years  between  the  reigns  of  James  II  and  George 
III  were  spent  in  a  series  of  wars,  the  longest  of  which 
lasted  twelve  and  the  shortest  seven  years,  their  general 
result  being  that  Britain  became  the  mother  of  free  common- 
wealths in  the  West  and  at  the  Antipodes,  whose  inhabitants 
shared  with  her  a  common  language  and  law.  The  revolt 
of  the  American  Colonists  in  1776  showed  that  communi- 
ties derived  from  the  parental  stock  could  not  be  held  to 
their  allegiance  when  unwise  legislation  offended  their  love 
of  freedom,  and  least  of  all  by  the  threat  and  employment 

261 


262      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

of  physical  force.  The  outcome  ensured  the  ehmination 
from  British  policy  of  those  structural  defects  that  had  re- 
sulted in  the  dissolution  of  previous  empires,  consisting  of 
alien  nationalities  mechanically  compressed  into  a  superficial 
unity.  The  triumph  of  Washington  and  his  fellow-patriots 
was  an  impressive  lesson  in  the  rights  of  self-government 
which  English  statesmen  have  not  forgotten,  and  it  was  not 
less  instructive  for  the  founders  of  the  Republic.  The  world 
had  never  known  what  they  proposed  to  establish,  an 
enlightened  and  popular  authority  intended  to  operate  on 
a  continental  scale.  Hitherto  republican  institutions  had 
existed  only  in  cities  and  compact  provinces  such  as  the 
Italian  municipalities  and  the  Swiss  Confederacy ;  even 
ancient  Rome  failed  in  her  efforts  to  realize  the  mean  be- 
tween anarchy  and  despotism.  Hence,  from  the  beginning 
the  American  experiment  was  viewed  with  disfavor  by 
European  rulers  whose  interests  were  imperiled  by  its  grow- 
ing success,  and  with  anxiety  by  publicists  who  felt  a 
sincere  distrust  of  democracy.  That  it  succeeded  is  a 
tribute  to  the  respect  for  precedent  and  for  law  which 
animated  its  leaders. 

While  Britons  arose  every  morning  to  hear  of  new  victo- 
ries on  land  or  sea,  they  took  pains  to  push  the  business 
ventures  that  provided  funds  for  the  costly  military  proj- 
ects of  the  government,  and  left  a  handsome  surplus  to 
their  capital  account.  Financial  interests  were  carefully 
fostered  by  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  who  was  brought  to  the 
front  rank  of  politics  in  1721  by  the  panic  that  followed  the 
collapse  of  the  South  Sea  Bubble  and  involved  several 
ministers  of  State.  He  had  warned  the  country  against  the 
scheme,  and  it  was  to  him  that  the  English  people  looked  for 
guidance  and  recovery  when  disaster  overtook  them.  Wal- 
pole sprang  from  the  country  gentry  whose  vices  he  shared 
without  their  stupidities.  He  owed  his  long  continuance  in 
office  to  a  variety  of  causes,  but  chiefly  to  his  predominance 
as  a  man  of  affairs  when  men  of  affairs  were  few  in  the  House 


JOHN  WESLEY  263 

of  Commons.  More  trustworthy  than  the  gifted  but  treach- 
erous St.  John  ^  whom  he  succeeded,  Walpole  saw  what 
even  Stanhope  had  failed  to  see :  that  the  masses  were 
not  prepared  to  participate  in  affairs  of  government,  which, 
as  yet,  must  be  reserved  for  the  upper  classes.  His  dil- 
atory tactics  and  pacific  temperament  staved  off  the 
wars  for  which  the  nation  clamored,  while  he  devoted  his 
wise  and  useful  talents  to  its  material  prosperity.  In  no 
sense  a  scholar,  a  courtier,  or  a  wit,  Walpole  was  never- 
theless a  statesman  of  firm  temper  and  unfailing  good 
humor;  sane,  self-contained,  and  shrewd  in  practical  con- 
cerns. These  gifts  enabled  him  to  impose  his  will  on  the 
Cabinet,  and  for  twenty  years  he  was  the  virtual  head  of  the 
State,  the  first  of  a  series  of  Prime  Ministers  who  have 
gradually  limited  the  prerogatives  of  the  Crown  and  estab- 
lished the  party  system  which  obtains  in  England.  Somers 
and  Montague,  Harley  and  Bolingbroke,  were  foremost 
members  of  administrations  which  had  no  premier  :  Walpole, 
on  the  other  hand,  inaugurated  the  slow  and  silent  change 
by  which  the  English  constitution  was  transformed  from  an 
hereditary  monarchy  with  a  parliamentary  regulative  agency 
into  a  parliamentary  government  with  an  hereditary  regu- 
lative agency.  He  was  accused  of  wholesale  bribery  and 
corruption,  but  a  careful  scrutiny  of  his  conduct  does 
not  altogether  sustain  the  charges  nor  justify  the  reproach 
that  has  blackened  his  reputation.  His  successor,  Henry 
Pelham,  employed  methods  which  Walpole  disdained  to  use, 
and  Pelham 's  brother,  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  who  suc- 
ceeded him,  had  lower  standards  of  public  honesty  than 
either  of  his  immediate  predecessors.  The  wars  with  France 
virtually  ended  Newcastle's  ministry,  and  then  emerged  the 
elder  Pitt,  Lord  Chatham,  whose  lofty  appeal  to  the  patriot- 
ism of  his  countrymen  enthralled  England  and  marked 
the  beginning  of  a  new  era  in  her  affairs.  With  too  much 
dignity  of  character  to  care  for  the  emoluments  of  ofiice, 

'  Elevated  to  the  peerage  in  1712  a3  Viscount  Bolingbroke. 


264      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

Pitt  governed  by  the  force  of  his  tremendous  personaHty 
and  his  splendid  example  rather  than  by  political  sagacity. 
His  commanding  countenance  and  bearing  indicated  the 
born  ruler  of  men.  He  was  filled  with  ideals  and  hopes 
which,  though  they  could  not  always  be  realized,  stamped 
him  as  something  apart  from  the  courtiers  and  placemen 
by  whom  he  was  surrounded.  His  chronic  and  abysmal 
melancholy  deepened  this  impression  on  those  who  knew 
him,  and  the  tragic  scene  of  his  last  protest  against  the 
policy  of  George  the  Third  convinced  the  nation  that  its 
true  greatness  had  been  safest  in  the  keeping  of  the  dying 
hero  who,  "wounded  sore,  *sank  foiled,'  but  fighting  ever- 
more." The  career  of  his  son,  "the  heaven-born  minister 
of  State,"  was  made  famous  by  his  resistance  of  Napoleon 
I  and  his  life-long  duel  with  his  great  adversary,  Charles 
James  Fox.  Above  all  other  statesmen  of  the  period  in 
his  eloquent  and  profound  exposition  of  constitutional  ques- 
tions stood  Edmund  Burke,  the  illustrious  orator  whose 
hatred  of  the  excesses  of  the  French  Revolution  prompted 
those  "apocalyptic  ravings"  which,  while  they  deflected 
his  genius  from  its  true  objects,  added  to  his  renown.^ 
The  endless  intrigues  and  controversies  of  the  century 
were  not  conducive  to  the  growth  of  domestic  reform,  yet 
they  were  interpenetrated  with  larger,  better  public  aspira- 
tions for  which  the  efforts  of  the  more  enlightened  Whigs  and 
Radical  partisans  were  chiefly  responsible.  But  aristocratic 
interests  were  then  very  powerful :  borough-mongering  was 
everywhere  accepted,  ecclesiastical  monopolies  were  abun- 
dant, and  equal  and  speedy  justice  in  ordinary  matters  was 

'  In  his  Lectures  on  Literature,  Schlegel  says :  "If  we  are  to  praise  a  man 
in  proportion  to  his  usefulness,  I  am  persuaded  that  no  task  can  be  more 
difficult  than  that  of  doing  justice  to  Burke.  This  man  has  been  to  his  own 
country  and  to  all  Europe  —  in  a  very  particxilar  manner  to  Germany  —  a 
new  light  of  political  wisdom  and  experience.  He  corrected  his  age  when  it 
was  at  the  height  of  its  revolutionary  frenzy ;  and  without  maintaining  any 
system  of  philosophy,  he  seems  to  have  seen  farther  into  the  true  nature  of 
society  and  to  have  more  clearly  comprehended  the  effect  of  religion  in  con- 
necting individual  security  with  national  welfare,  than  any  philosopher  or 
any  system  of  philosophy  of  any  preceding  age." 


JOHN   WESLEY  265 

difficult  to  obtain.  The  nation's  greatest  need,  however, 
was  not  a  social  readjustment,  nor  an  educational  program, 
so  much  as  a  spiritual  regeneration.  Many  perceived  and 
desired  this,  but  the  means  they  employed  were  wholly 
inadequate.  They  had  forgotten  that  man  is  an  emotional 
being,  and  appealed  solely  to  his  reason,  treating  any  display 
of  feeling  as  folly,  and  branding  it  with  the  opprobrious  name 
of  enthusiasm,  a  term  which  moved  into  an  entirely  new 
atmosphere  after  the  Evangelical  Revival,  passing  from 
contempt  to  honor.  The  preaching  of  Whitefield  and  the 
Wesleys,  which  was  mainly  directed  to  the  individual  heart 
and  conscience,  supplied  their  clamant  necessities  and  gave 
to  numberless  Englishmen  a  vigorous  social  coherence 
through  a  common  religious  experience.  Wesley's  contribu- 
tion was  a  powerful  organization  which,  when  once  es- 
tablished, did  not  always  follow  the  course  of  its  author, 
but  adapted  itself  to  the  exigencies  of  unforeseen  circum- 
stances. 

Movements  in  literature  corresponded  with  those  of 
ethics  and  religion.  They  sprang  into  being  from  a  soil 
not  upturned  by  any  violent  convulsion,  but  in  which  an 
irrepressible  vitality  had  been  secretly  at  work.  From  the 
age  of  Milton  to  that  of  Wesley,  Puritanism  had  been  ban- 
ished from  the  superficial  life  of  the  world.  "Yet,  Bunyan 
had  dreamt  his  dream,  and  visualized  forever  his  imaginings ; 
Addison  had  reconciled  literature  with  the  earnest  purposes 
of  human  existence ;  Defoe  had  grasped  the  concrete  sub- 
stance of  things  and  breathed  truth  into  fiction."  ^  When 
deism  entered  the  field  it  infected  with  its  cold  and  un- 
sympathetic outlook  the  school  of  which  Alexander  Pope 
was  the  acknowledged  master.  The  new  birth  of  Puritan- 
ism and  the  resurrection  of  emotion  reacted  against  this, 
and  concurred  in  giving  rise  to  the  romanticism  of  Burns 
and  Scott.  They  demonstrated  that  the  spirit  of  man 
demanded   emancipation  from  a  one-sided    intellectualism, 

1  "The  Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature"  ;   Vol.  X,  pp.  1-2. 


266      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

and  Wordsworth  afterwards  enforced  the  demand  by 
prompting  that  return  to  nature  of  which  Rousseau's 
writings  were  so  poor  an  expression.  These  underlying 
principles  are  merely  mentioned  here,  but  they  should  be 
taken  into  serious  account  in  any  attempt  to  appraise  and 
interpret  the  literary  output  of  the  century,  which  began 
with  Pope,  but  was  really  fathered  by  Dryden. 

The  work  of  the  high  priest  of  pseudo-classicism,  thor- 
oughly imbued  as  it  was  with  the  spirit  of  his  art,  furnished 
current  speech  with  many  of  its  quotable  phrases.  The 
"Rape  of  the  Lock"  has  been  termed  the  most  brilliant 
occasional  poem  in  the  language,  and  as  a  rule  Pope's  verse 
reached  the  height  of  polished  perfection.  When  its  faultless 
monotony  began  to  weary  the  ear  of  a  more  earnest  genera- 
tion, Robert  Burns  appeared,  and  heralded  another  epoch  for 
humanity  in  his  spontaneous  song.  He  was  so  completely 
the  greatest  of  Scottish  poets  that  no  other  comes  into  the 
reckoning.  Sir  Walter  Scott's  genius  was  more  eclectic,  but 
in  the  essential  elements  and  spirit  of  the  ballad  Burns  is  still 
unsurpassed.  He  used  the  narrow  cranny  of  a  rustic  dialect 
to  pour  out  a  lyric  so  unaffected,  so  compassionate,  so  clear, 
and  so  appropriate,  that  it  rejuvenated  his  nation.  Be- 
ginning as  the  bard  of  his  shire,  he  became  the  poet  of 
Scotland,  and  ended  as  the  singer  of  love,  nature,  patriot- 
ism, friendship,  and  courage  for  the  English-speaking  race. 
Thomas  Gray  and  William  Collins  strove  to  revive  the 
designs  of  Greece,  both  in  the  fullness  and  maturity  of  their 
style:  Gray's  "Elegy"  remains,  as  Lord  Morley  has  said, 
"an  eternal  delight  and  solace  for  the  hearts  of  wearied 
men,"  and  had  Collins  lived,  he  might  have  rivaled  Keats. 
Oliver  Goldsmith  vocalized  the  new  feeling  for  man  and 
nature  in  his  "Traveller"  (1764)  and  the  "Deserted  Village" 
(1770).  The  merits  of  the  humble  and  obscure,  the  charms 
of  pastoral  environment  and  the  blessings  of  the  religious 
life  were  expressed  in  the  works  of  Cowper,  which  mark  the 
second  phase  of  poetry  in  the  eighteenth  century.     In  1782, 


JOHN   WESLEY  267 

when  past  his  fiftieth  year,  he  gave  forth  from  a  life  of  sad 
seclusion  his  first  volume,  and  three  years  later  "The  Task 
and  Other  Poems"  was  published.  The  strong  sense,  good 
morals,  domestic  piety,  and  love  of  rural  scenery  expressed 
in  them  revealed  possibilities  in  poetry  which  many  who 
worshiped  Pope  had  not  suspected. 

In  other  branches  of  literature  influential  writers  some- 
times forgot  that  works  to  be  enduring  must  be  elevated 
above  contemporary  standards  and  interests.  The  unscru- 
pulous partisan  whose  reputation  was  based  upon  contro- 
versial skill  paid  little  regard  to  the  literary  conscience,  his 
principal  aim  being  the  proving  of  his  case  wholly  right  and 
that  of  his  antagonist  wholly  wrong.  Philosophers  who  hesi- 
tated because  they  held  more  comprehensive  and  balanced 
views  were  far  less  acceptable  to  the  popular  taste  than  es- 
sayists and  pamphleteers  who  settled  vexatious  questions 
with  dogmatic  assurance,  and  carried  their  opinions  on  re- 
ligion, ethics,  or  politics  to  the  last  extreme.  The  century 
was  impatient  of  the  twilight  zone  in  these  discussions;  it 
welcomed  the  man  who  was  entirely  positive,  clear,  and 
unhampered  by  misgivings.  Jacobites  and  Hanoverians, 
Whigs  and  Tories,  Romans  and  Protestants,  Churchmen 
and  Dissenters,  Jurors  and  Non-Jurors,  Skeptics  and  Sec- 
taries stoutly  contended  for  their  respective  orthodoxies, 
and  denounced  the  rest  with  an  intolerance  ignorant  of 
compromise.  When  Dean  Swift's  pen  was  enlisted  in 
support  of  Harley  and  Bolingbroke,  he  at  once  turned 
upon  his  former  friends  Addison  and  Steele  and  abused  them 
with  unseemly  violence,  looking  upon  his  rivals,  not  as 
opponents  to  be  defeated,  but  as  enemies  to  be  driven  out 
of  public  life.  His  amazing  genius  found  an  opening  for 
its  display  in  his  pamphlet  on  "The  Conduct  of  the  Allies," 
which  rendered  one  of  England's  most  popular  wars  so  odious 
that  the  people  loudly  demanded  peace  on  almost  any 
terms.  For  inventiveness,  ridicule,  scorn,  and  hate,  no 
satires  have  surpassed  "Gulliver's  Travels"  and  few  if  any 


268      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

political  authors  have  wielded  these  weapons  so  effectively. 
In  England,  Swift  turned  the  current  of  feeling  against  the 
Whigs,  and  Ireland's  capital  still  reveres  his  memory. 
But  although  some  traits  of  his  singular  character  were 
praiseworthy,  physical  disease  and  moral  deformity  united 
to  vitiate  his  imagination,  and  he  acquired  that  taste  for 
loathsome  ideas  which  defiled  the  workings  of  his  powerful 
but  gloomy  mind.  The  most  dreaded  writer  of  his  age, 
his  vindictive  passions  prevented  him  from  attaining  personal 
success ;  he  began  by  attacking  partisans,  he  ended  with  a 
fearful  and  depraved  assault  upon  the  human  race,  "letting 
irony  blacken  into  savage  and  impious  misanthropy,"  — 
and  the  darkness  which  finally  enveloped  him  was  fore- 
shadowed in  his  later  books. 

Of  fiction  it  must  suffice  to  say  that  Richardson,  Smollett, 
Fielding,  and  Sterne  continued  the  tradition  so  delightfully 
begun  by  Defoe,  and  mirrored  in  a  large  and  varied  way  the 
life  of  their  times.  The  periodical  essay  was  the  creation 
of  Steele  and  Addison :  "I  have  brought,"  said  the  latter, 
"philosophy  out  of  closets  and  libraries,  schools  and  colleges, 
to  dwell  in  clubs  and  assemblies."  The  claim  was  genuine, 
and  the  humanity,  refinement,  humor,  and  instruction  of 
the  Tatler  and  the  Spectator  were  widely  appreciated, 
although  they  had  little  effect  upon  the  corruption  and  de- 
pravity of  the  period.  The  historians  Hume  and  Robert- 
son were  largely  influenced  by  Montesquieu  and  Voltaire. 
Notwithstanding  that  Hume's  History  was  written  from  a 
prejudiced  standpoint,  its  philosophic  tone  and  literary  qual- 
ity partly  reconcile  the  reader  to  its  failings  as  a  trustworthy 
account.  His  "Treatise  on  Human  Nature"  proved  to  be 
the  original  impulse  of  the  Scottish  philosophy,  and  his 
"Political  Discourses,"  published  in  1752,  announced  the 
economic  principles  afterwards  formulated  into  an  elabo- 
rate system  by  Adam  Smith  in  his  "Inquiry  into  the 
Nature  and  Causes  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations."  Robert- 
son's "History  of  Charles  V,"  while  less  distinguished  for 


JOHN   WESLEY  269 

style  than  Hume's  work,  was  more  careful  as  to  facts.  Ex- 
tended comment  on  Gibbon's  "  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire"  is  superfluous:  the  book  was  suggested  to  him  in 
1764  as  he  wandered  among  the  ruins  of  the  Eternal  City ; 
since  1787  it  has  been  one  of  the  few  works  that  all  educated 
men  and  women  have  felt  obliged  to  read,  and  "  still  remains 
unique  for  its  supreme  and  almost  epic  power  of  moulding 
into  a  lucid  array  a  bewildering  multitude  of  details."  Bos- 
well's  life  of  Dr.  Johnson,  which  is  perhaps  the  best  biography 
in  the  language,  portrays  with  exactitude  and  life-like  detail 
the  most  impressive  literary  character  of  the  century.  John- 
son's moral  dignity  and  independence  of  spirit,  so  intrepidly 
shown  in  his  fight  against  poverty  and  patronage,  was 
a  patch  of  blue  in  leaden  skies,  and  gave  him  a  monarchical 
influence  over  his  contemporaries.  Always  true  to  himself, 
he  was  more  afraid  of  his  conscience  than  of  the  world's 
judgment.  R.  H.  Hutton  has  justly  said,  "He  towers  above 
our  generation  because  he  had  the  courage  to  be  what  so 
few  of  us  are  —  proudly  independent  of  the  opinion  in  the 
midst  of  which  he  lived."  From  the  society  by  which  he 
was  surrounded,  a  society  false  to  God  and  false  to  man,  the 
observer  turns  with  relief  to  this  paladin  of  letters,  with  the 
tea-slopped  vest,  fuzzy  wig,  and  shabby  coat,  who  walked 
with  elephantine  motions  down  Fleet  Street  to  his  lodging 
or  favorite  tavern,  muttering  to  himself  and  hitting  the  way- 
side posts  with  his  cudgel.  His  unswerving  loyalty  to  duty, 
which  presented  itself  to  him  in  the  form  of  certain  definite 
principles,  was  based,  not  only  upon  the  general  practice  of 
the  best  of  mankind,  but  also  upon  the  Divine  Law  as  laid 
down  in  Scripture.  His  "Lives  of  the  Poets"  and  the  "Dic- 
tionary" attest  his  critical  gifts  and  his  industry  as  a  scholar. 
His  table  talk,  as  recorded  by  the  devoted  Boswell,  covered 
a  host  of  convictions,  prejudices,  axioms,  and  criticisms  on 
men  and  events,  alike  expressed  in  vigorous  and  un- 
mistakable speech.  It  has  become  an  inseparable  part  of 
literature,  and  is  in  itself  a  memorial  of  his  tremendous  and 


270      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

virtuous  personality.  An  evening  spent  with  Johnson  and 
his  chosen  friends  was  an  introduction  to  the  inner  circle 
of  the  most  gifted  and  creative  men  of  the  English-speaking 
world :  even  Wesley  succumbed  to  the  attractions  of  the 
Literary  Club,  and  paused  in  his  endless  labors  that  he 
might  enjoy  a  chat  with  the  oracle  of  the  "Cheshire  Cheese." 
The  period  may  be  likened  to  a  low-lying  and  arid  plain 
from  which  ever  and  anon  arose  towering  mountain  peaks. 
Swift,  Gibbon,  Chatham,  Burke,  Johnson,  and  Wesley  were 
great  in  the  largest  sense  of  that  overworked  term,  and  be- 
low their  height  was  no  dearth  of  first-class  talent.  Yet  the 
gracious  and  elevating  elements  which  make  Christian  society 
and  conversation  were  lacking,  and  one  has  but  to  compare 
such  a  cleric  as  Swift  with  the  Founder  of  Methodism  to 
perceive  the  gulf  which  separated  them.  Wesley's  life 
spanned  the  century ;  and  he  was  more  familiar  with  the 
England  of  his  time  than  any  other  man  in  it.  Born  in 
the  reign  of  Queen  Anne  and  dying  in  that  of  George 
III,  he  saw  in  his  old  age,  and  regretted,  the  separation 
of  the  American  colonies  from  the  historical  development 
of  English-speaking  men;  and  heard  the  news  that  the 
Parisians  had  guillotined  Louis  XVL  The  first  entry  made 
in  his  Journal  was  dated  October  14,  1735,  the  last,  October 
24,  1790;  during  the  interval  his  country's  religious  and 
social  phenomena  were  perhaps  as  fully  recorded  there  as 
in  any  contemporary  volume.  W^ritten  large  in  its  pages  is 
the  evidence  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  obtuseness  of  the 
people  and  the  apathy  of  the  educated  and  clerical 
classes;  dead  weights  of  stupidity  and  indifference  with 
which  he  had  to  deal.  No  explanation  of  the  Evangelical 
Revival  can  be  complete  unless  these  adverse  conditions 
are  taken  into  account ;  no  just  estimate  of  the  greatness  of 
Wesley  is  possible  without  an  appreciation  of  the  obstacles 
he  surmounted. 
^  The  otherwise  disastrous  days  of  the  Stuarts  had  wit- 
nessed a  steadily  increasing  commercial  prosperity,  which. 


JOHN   WESLEY  271 

although  interrupted  by  the  French  Wars,  speedily  revived 
after  the  peace  of  Utrecht  in  1713.  The  value  of  exports 
reached  their  lowest  point  in  1705,  when  it  fell  to  about 
twenty-six  million  dollars;  ten  years  later  it  was  nearly 
forty  millions.  In  the  course  of  the  eighteenth  century  ex- 
tensive changes  took  place  in  agriculture,  which  was  for 
a  long  time  to  come  the  leading  industry.  Until  the  reign 
of  the  second  George,  methods  of  tilling  the  soil  were  ex- 
tremely primitive,  more  than  half  the  cultivated  land 
being  divided  and  worked  on  the  old  open-field  system. 
The  credit  for  effecting  an  improvement  was  due  to 
•Jethro  Hill  and  to  George  the  First's  Secretary  of  State, 
Lord  Townshend,  who  also  introduced  the  turnip  root  into 
England,  thereby  earning  for  himself  the  nickname  of 
"Turnip  Townshend."  The  increased  productiveness  of 
the  soil,  which  was  at  least  fourfold  that  of  Wycliffe's  age, 
aided  the  growth  of  population  and  manufactures.  Sta- 
tistics are  scanty  and  faulty,  but  it  is  generally  assumed  that 
the  population  of  England  at  the  close  of  Elizabeth's  reign 
did  not  exceed  two  and  a  half  millions.  By  the  time  of 
James  II,  Macaulay  estimated  that  it  had  reached  five  or  five 
and  a  half  millions.  In  the  eighteenth  century  there  was  a 
large  increase,  and  Professor  Thorold  Rogers  concludes  that 
in  1772  England  contained  about  eight  million  inhabitants.^ 
The  people  enriched  the  waste  land  and  drained  the  marshes. 
The  commons  were  enclosed  and  cultivated  in  order  to  supply 
the  towns  with  foodstuffs.  In  this  development,  however,  the 
yeomanry  were  sacrificed ;  men  of  slender  means  could  not 
afford  to  purchase  their  holdings  at  the  enormously  advanced 
prices,  and  for  the  same  reason  small  owners  were  induced 
to  sell.  These  classes  either  moved  into  the  towns  and 
cities,  or  became  tenants  and  laborers  on  proprietary  estates. 
The  group  of  intellectuals,  with  its  salons,  its  life  of  cultured 
ease,  of  epigram,  and  sententious  wisdom,  was  apparently 
as  unaware  of  these  changes  as  w^ere  the  coteries  of  fashion 

1  "Six  Centuries  of  Work  and  Wages"  ;  p.  477. 


272      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

and  of  politics.  At  the  very  moment  when  England  boasted 
that  she  had  won  half  the  world  and  controlled  the  other 
half,  the  once  contented  workers  of  the  countryside  were 
being  robbed  of  their  farmsteads,  their  ancient  rights, 
their  economic  freedom,  and  reduced  to  the  most  forlorn 
condition  of  all  British  toilers. 

Manufacturing  enterprises  were  also  revolutionized  during 
this  period.  Cotton  was  scarcely  known  in  England  before 
the  eighteenth  century,  and  when  it  appeared  legislation 
was  uselessly  enacted  to  prevent  its  competition  with  the 
time- honored  trade  in  woolen  goods.  But  the  most  marked 
improvement  resulted  from  the  invention  of  machinery. 
Newcomen  applied  steam  power  to  manufactures  in  1712, 
and  James  Watt  constructed  his  first  steam  engine  in 
1765.  Kay's  flying  shuttle,  Hargreaves'  spinning  jenny, 
Arkwright's  spinning  frame,  Compton's  mule-jenny.  Cart- 
wright's  power  loom,  and  similar  inventions  gave  Britain 
her  preeminence  in  textile  fabrics.  The  basic  industries, 
however,  were  coal  mining  and  iron  smelting,  in  which,  until 
the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Great  Britain  en- 
joyed practically  a  monopoly. 

These  important  operations,  with  others  which  naturally 
resulted  from  them,  changed  the  face  of  the  country.  Some 
neighborhoods  lost  their  wild,  shaggy  appearance,  and  be- 
gan to  assume  the  pastoral  aspects  which  are  their  present 
charm.  Others  were  disfigured  by  unsightly  banks  of  shale 
and  refuse  from  the  mines,  while  the  smoking  chimneys 
of  factories  and  mills  polluted  the  atmosphere.  Life  in 
such  localities  was  neither  so  wholesome  nor  so  happy  as 
when  it  had  been  spent  on  the  heath  and  the  upland.  Cities 
and  trade  grew  at  the  expense  of  flesh  and  blood ;  em- 
ployers were  heedless  of  the  physical  and  moral  well-being 
of  their  workmen.  At  the  worst  the  unsanitary  cottages  of 
rustic  hamlets  were  surrounded  by  fields  and  forests  where 
the  peasants  could  breathe  pure  air ;  now  they  were  huddled 
together  without  regard  for  health  and  decency.     The  ugly 


JOHN  WESLEY  273 

stories  of  vice  and  crime  already  touched  upon  were  sequences 
of  these  abuses.  As  soon  as  it  was  discovered  that  child 
labor  was  profitable,  the  greedy  clutch  of  capital  seized  the 
little  ones  whom  parents  or  guardians  surrendered  at  a  ten- 
der age  to  prolonged  hours  of  dreary  and  dangerous  toil. 
Enervated  hordes,  ill-fed,  ill-clothed,  without  education  or 
religion,  swarmed  in  municipalities  which  supplanted  the 
cathedral  towns  in  commercial  importance.  Edinburgh, 
Glasgow,  Newcastle,  Leeds,  Bradford,  Sheffield,  Liverpool, 
Manchester,  and  Birmingham  became  the  centers  of  the 
nation,  and  diverted  the  volume  of  trade  to  the  northern 
provinces. 

The  dense  ignorance  then  prevalent  contributed  to  the 
evils  attendant  upon  industrialism  and  the  congestion  of 
manufacturing  towns.  It  also  prompted  one  of  the  educa- 
tional movements  that  stand  to  the  credit  of  Anglicanism. 
In  1699  Doctor  Bray  founded  the  Society  for  Promoting 
Christian  Knowledge,  which  in  turn  established  numer- 
ous schools,  especially  in  the  larger  cities.  Thirty  years 
later  Griffith  Jones  organized  in  Wales  a  staff  of  school- 
masters who  traveled  throughout  the  Principality  and  taught 
adults  to  read  the  Bible.  In  1775  the  Kingdom  could  muster 
only  1193  schools  with  26,920  pupils.  The  emergency  was 
so  grave  that  in  1782,  Robert  Raikes  established  his  first 
Sunday  School  at  Gloucester.  The  idea  did  not  originate 
with  Raikes :  Wesley  held  Sunday  classes  for  children 
in  Savannah  during  1737 ;  Theophilus  Lindsey  at  Catterick 
in  Yorkshire  in  1769;  Hannah  Ball  at  High  Wycombe  in 
the  same  year ;  and  Jenkin  Morgan  near  Llandiloes  in  1770. 
These  schools  combined  secular  with  sacred  instruction  well 
on  into  the  next  century.  Such  provisions  were  of  course 
inadequate;  there  was  no  national  educational  policy  until 
many  years  afterwards,  and  Wesley's  reiterated  insistence 
upon  knowledge  as  well  as  piety  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
in  addition  to  folly  and  vice  he  was  confronted  at  every 
turn  by  illiteracy  and  superstition. 


274     THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 


II 

The  predominant  feature  of  English  rehgious  thought  in 
the  eighteenth  century  was  its  universal  acceptance  of  rea- 
son as  the  criterion  of  truth.  It  might  be  strenuously  con- 
tended by  opposing  schools  that  a  given  doctrine  or  miracle 
was  or  was  not  agreeable  to  reason,  but  that  the  issue  was 
to  be  decided  by  reason  was  never  questioned  by  either 
party  to  the  dispute.  The  words  of  Bishop  Gibson  in  his 
second  Pastoral  Letter,  1730,  indicate  the  position  occupied 
in  common  by  all  theologians  of  the  period :  "  It  is  univer- 
sally acknowledged  that  revelation  itself  is  to  stand  or  fall 
by  the  test  of  reason."  To  the  same  effect  wrote  Tillotson, 
Butler,  Rogers,  Foster,  Warburton,  and  other  divines. 
They  were  agreed  upon  and  taught  the  doctrines  of 
Locke,  the  father  of  English  Rationalism,  that  "Reason 
is  natural  revelation,  whereby  the  eternal  Father  of  light, 
and  fountain  of  all  Knowledge,  communicates  to  mankind 
that  portion  of  truth  which  he  has  laid  within  the  reach  of 
their  natural  faculties.  Revelation  is  natural  reason  en- 
larged by  a  new  set  of  discoveries  communicated  by  God 
immediately,  which  reason  vouches  the  truth  of  by  the  testi- 
mony and  proof  it  gives  that  they  come  from  God.  So  that 
he  that  takes  away  reason  to  make  way  for  revelation,  puts 
out  the  light  of  both;  and  does  much  the  same  as  if  he 
would  persuade  a  man  to  put  out  his  eyes,  the  better  to 
receive  the  remote  light  of  an  invisible  star  by  a  telescope."  ^ 

This  theory,  which  Dr.  Loof s  calls  "  rational  supra-natural- 
ism," deduced  religious  belief  from  an  intellectual  process 
—  just  the  reverse  of  its  actual  history.  Primarily  all 
dynamic  religious  belief  issues  out  of  religious  experi- 
ence, and  the  necessity  of  coordinating  that  experience  with 
other  contents  of  one's  mental  world  arises  later.  In 
other  words,  religious  experience  is  the  raw  material  of  vital 

1  "Essay  "  ;  Book  IV,  ch.  19,  sec.  4. 


JOHN   WESLEY  275 

theology :   "  men  spake  from  God  being  moved  by  the  Holy 
Ghost." 

The  praiseworthy  purpose  which  inspired  the  attempt 
of  moralists  and  thinkers  to  rationalize  religion  was  two- 
fold. First,  they  sought  to  check  the  growing  immorality 
by  preserving  in  dialectical  form  the  principles  of  ethical 
and  religious  conduct.  The  problem  being  one  of  moral 
depravity  rather  than  of  theological  heresy,  they  labored 
less  in  the  interests  of  dogma  than  in  those  of  virtue.  Hence 
their  theme  was  a  prudential  ethic,  cogently  enforced  by 
Scriptural  warrants  of  final  rewards  and  punishments.  While 
this  rationalized  morality  of  consequences  held  the  field, 
dogmatic  theology  died  out,  except  with  a  few  obscure  writers, 
and  it  was  not  long  before  Christianity,  as  Mark  Pattison  ob- 
serves, appeared  made  for  nothing  else  but  to  be  proved. 
Reason,  first  heralded  as  the  basis  of  faith,  gradually  became 
its  substitute.  The  mind  was  too  busy  examining  and  testing 
the  evidences  of  Christianity  to  appropriate  its  life  and  power. 
The  only  quality  in  Scripture  dwelt  upon  was  its  credibil- 
ity. Dr.  Johnson  denounced  the  process  as  "Old  Bailey 
theology,"  in  which  "the  apostles  were  being  tried  once  a 
week  for  the  capital  crime  of  forgery."  It  would  not  be 
just,  however,  to  accept  as  true  this  undiscriminating  criti- 
cism, for  the  religious  thought  of  the  rationalizing  age  had 
varying  degrees  of  merit  and  fell  within  two  distinct  periods. 
In  the  earlier,  the  endeavor  was  to  demonstrate  the  com- 
patibility of  Biblical  revelation  with  reason;  in  the  later, 
which  dates  from  about  1750  onwards  and  is  mainly  repre- 
sented by  the  schools  of  Paley  and  Whately,  attention  was 
confined  to  the  genuineness  and  authenticity  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. Neither,  of  course,  was  religious  instruction  in  the 
real  meaning  of  the  term,  but  the  former  did  in  a  measure 
concern  itself  with  vital  matters  of  revelation,  and  by  so 
much  it  was  superior  to  the  later  evidential  period,  which 
was  incessantly  grinding  out  artificial  proofs  that  proved 
nothing  except  the  unreality  of  the  whole  procedure. 


276      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

A  second  cause  for  the  rationalizing  process  was  attributable 
to  its  conflict  with  the  deists,  who,  casting  aside  the  fetters  of 
prescriptive  rights,  positive  codes,  and  scholastic  systems, 
set  themselves  to  follow  exclusively  the  light  of  nature. 
Thomas  Hobbes,  more  radical  than  Sir  Francis  Bacon, 
prematurely  conceived  a  universal  construction  of  knowledge, 
which  would  include  society  and  man  within  its  verifiable 
explanations.  His  daring  inquiries  were  remarkable  for 
what  they  suggested  rather  than  for  what  they  accom- 
plished, and  their  influence  can  be  traced  in  many 
directions.  Midway  between  Bacon  and  Locke,  and  in 
contact  with  each  only  at  a  single  point,  Hobbes  gave  a 
decided  impulse  to  the  ethical  speculation  which  has  since 
been  carried  on  by  his  countrymen,  and  his  skepticism  evoked 
those  intellectual  tendencies  which  weakened  authority  and 
established  the  supremacy  of  reason. 

The  inductive  method,  as  taught  by  Bacon,  and  adopted 
by  the  Royal  Society,  the  senior  association  for  scientific 
research  in  the  kingdom,  gained  ascendency  over  the  ablest 
minds  among  the  clergy.  The  six  folios  of  Stillingfleet,  who 
died  Bishop  of  Worcester  in  1699,  mark  the  transition  from 
the  contention  with  Rome  to  the  declaration  of  war  against 
Locke.  The  deistic  controversy  raged  during  the  first  four 
decades  of  the  century,  and  then  gradually  subsided.  By 
the  time  of  Bolingbroke's  death  in  1751  interest  in  the  ques- 
tion was  practically  at  an  end.  His  executor,  Mallet,  pub- 
lished his  works  three  years  later,  but  there  was  very 
little  demand  for  them.  According  to  Boswell,  Johnson 
voiced  the  sentiments  of  well-principled  men  when  he 
said  concerning  Bolingbroke,  "Sir,  he  was  a  scoundrel,  and 
a  coward ;  a  scoundrel  for  charging  a  blunderbuss  against 
religion  and  morality ;  a  coward,  because  he  had  not 
resolution  to  fire  it  off  himself,  but  left  half  a  crown  to  a 
beggarly  Scotchman  to  draw  the  trigger  after  his  death." 

The  controversy  was  by  no  means  the  mere  empty  sound 
and  folly  of  words  which  some  have  supposed ;   on  the  con- 


JOHN   WESLEY  277 

trary,  the  objections  which  occasioned  it  were  acutely 
felt  by  many  who,  though  not  always  equal  to  sustained 
thinking,  were  determined  not  to  be  imposed  upon  by  un- 
substantiated dogma,  whatever  name  it  might  assume. 
As  the  dispute  developed,  the  sufficiency  of  natural  religion 
became  its  pivotal  issue.  The  deists  contended  that  the 
inherent  law  of  right  and  duty  was  sufficient,  and  so  abso- 
lutely perfect  that  God  Himself  could  add  nothing  to  it. 
On  the  other  hand,  Anglican  doctors  maintained  that  nat- 
ural religion  required  to  be  supplemented  by  a  supernat- 
ural revelation,  and  that  neither  excluded  or  was  contrary 
to  the  other ;  indeed,  both  were  essential,  the  former 
as  the  foundation,  the  latter  as  the  superstructure,  of  the 
Temple  of  Truth.  Accordingly,  with  all  the  ingenuity  and 
erudition  at  their  disposal,  they  strove  to  demonstrate  the 
mutual  harmony  of  natural  and  revealed  religion.  Chris- 
tianity was  placed  on  a  philosophical  basis,  and  its  claims 
reconciled,  ostensibly  at  any  rate,  with  those  affirmations 
of  the  rational  consciousness  that  were  unanimously  ac- 
cepted. Their  theology  and  philosophy  were  blended 
in  an  effort  of  the  intellect  to  become  liberalized,  com- 
prehensive, even  latitudinarian.  They  wrought  in  the 
belief  that  their  doctrines  could  be  demonstrated  as  being 
not  only  products  of  revelation,  but  also  a  body  of  necessary 
truths,  and  apparently  they  were  unaware  that  such  gener- 
alizations do  not  seriously  affect  the  majority,  who  yield  to 
sentiment  rather  than  to  reason. 

The  willingness  of  the  English  theologians  to  listen  to  the 
case  for  deism,  and  to  meet  it  with  the  legitimate  weap- 
ons of  argument,  stands  in  favorable  contrast  to  the  ob- 
scurantist attitude  of  Bossuet  and  his  fellow  ecclesiastics 
of  the  French  Church,  who  were  implacable  against  even  the 
shadow  of  doubt,  and  strenuously  asserted  the  authority  of 
the  Church,  as  expressed  by  Councils  and  Popes  in  their 
definitive  agreement,  in  matters  of  faith  and  doctrine.  The 
questions   which   were   answered   in   England   received   no 


278      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

sufficient  reply  in  France,  where  attempts  made  to  sup- 
press unbelief  served  to  propagate  it,  thus  dignifying  those 
heterodoxies  which  culminated  in  the  works  of  the  En- 
cyclopedists. This  resort  to  force  instead  of  argument  in 
dealing  with  opponents  was  typical  of  the  methods  of  the 
Gallican  Church  in  that  age,  and  resulted  in  the  calamities 
which  have  since  befallen  her. 

The  Anglican  orthodox  party  had  every  advantage  that 
talent,  learning,  and  prestige  could  bestow,  while  the  deists, 
although  they  included  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  the 
originator  of  the  sect,  Matthew  Tindal,  William  Wollaston, 
John  Toland,  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  Lord  Bolingbroke, 
Anthony  Collins,  Thomas  Chubb,  and  Henry  Dodwell, 
presented  a  marked  disparity  of  resources.  Sir  Leslie 
Stephen  refers  to  their  volumes  as  "shabby  and  shrivelled 
little  octavos,  generally  anonymous,  such  as  lurk  in  the 
corners  of  dusty  shelves,  and  seem  to  be  the  predestined  prey 
of  moths."  Against  them  were  arrayed  Bentley,  the  fore- 
most critic  of  the  period ;  Locke,  its  greatest  philosopher  ; 
Berkeley  and  Clarke,  keenest  of  disputants;  Waterland,  a 
scholar  of  wide  range ;  and  Butler,  distinguished  far  above  the 
rest  by  a  largeness  of  outlook  and  a  moral  considerateness 
diffused  over  all  his  work  —  a  series  of  formidable  apologists 
bent  on  the  destruction  of  deism.  For  them  fought  others, 
who  stood  without  the  Establishment,  such  as  Leslie  and 
Law  among  Non-Jurors,  and  Lardner,  Foster,  and  Doddridge 
among  Dissenters.  They  had  little  difficulty  in  finding  the 
vulnerable  points  of  their  adversaries,  for  whom  the  ordi- 
nary feeling  was  "a  combination  of  the  odium  theologicum 
with  the  contempt  of  the  finished  scholar  for  the  mere  dab- 
bler in  letters.  .  .  .  They  are  but  a  ragged  regiment,  whose 
whole  ammunition  of  learning  was  a  trifle  when  compared 
with  the  abundant  stores  of  a  single  light  of  orthodoxy; 
whilst  in  speculative  ability  most  of  them  were  children  by 
the  side  of  their  ablest  antagonists.  Swift's  sweeping  asser- 
tion, that  their  literary  power  would  hardly  have  attracted 


JOHN  WESLEY  279 

attention  if  employed  upon  any  other  topic,  seems  to  be 
generally  justified."  ^ 

Yet  such  excellence  is  sometimes  its  own  deterrent,  and 
so  it  proved  in  this  instance.  The  people  at  large  were 
untouched  by  the  discussion;   the  Church  suffered  because  j 

her  altar  fires  burnt  low;   placid  insistence  upon  the  exter-  / 

nals  of  faith  rather  than  upon  its  inward  reality  worked  havoc  ' 
among  the  clergy,  whose  activities  were  directed  toward  ' 
unprofitable  and  lifeless  discourses  which  expounded  a  creed 
divested  of  all  resemblance  to  New  Testament  Christianity, 
except  for  a  tacit  acknowledgment  of  the  veracity  of  the 
Gospel  narratives  and  a  belief  in  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity. 
The  clarity  and  atmosphere  of  ascertained  conviction  were 
lacking  in  the  sermons  they  preached,  conscious  that  few 
believed  them,  scarcely  believing  what  they  said  themselves. 
The  vapid  rhetoric  of  Blair  was  deemed  the  ideal  of  homiletic 
art  even  by  those  who  posed  as  arbiters  of  literary  taste 
and  doctrinal  correctness.  As  the  dispute  became  more 
trivial  and  meaningless,  the  ministry  suffered  a  further 
decline  in  zeal,  influence,  and  integrity.  It  was  one  task, 
assuredly  not  unimportant,  to  cope  with  the  deists'  pro- 
test against  tradition  and  with  their  misrepresentations 
of  history;  it  was  another,  and  not  so  easy  a  task,  to 
withstand  their  criticisms  of  Chillingworth's  position  that 
"the  Bible  only  is  the  religion  of  Protestants";  and  the 
most  difficult  of  all,  to  quicken  the  religious  instincts  of  the 
nation,  which  had  been  allowed  to  remain  dormant  lest 
they  should  prove  troublesome.  For  if  the  deists  failed  in 
their  leading  design  to  assert  the  sufficiency  of  natural  reli- 
gion, and  their  cult  became  a  reproach  even  amongst  those 
who  were  in  no  wise  defenders  of  orthodoxy,  the  Anglicans 
and  their  allies  made  the  unhappy  mistake  of  occupying 
only  the  outworks  of  faith,  while  its  citadel,  which  is  the 
personal  experience  of  the  power  of  revealed  truth,  was  de- 

»Sir  Leslie  Stephen:  "English  Thought  in  the  Eighteenth  Century"; 
Vol.  I.  p.  87. 


280      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

serted.  This  poor  strategy  left  them  with  little  more  than 
the  creed  of  their  antagonists,  abstract  and  argumentative, 
and  separated  from  all  that  was  individual,  peculiar,  and 
intense.  The  substance  of  theology  concerns  a  world  largely 
beyond  the  sphere  accessible  to  human  reason,  and  when 
they  proposed  to  treat  their  inductions  as  equivalents  for 
Christianity,  they  overlooked  the  danger  that  in  the  process 
the  latter  might  be  divested  of  its  vital  elements. 

The  outcome  has  been  succinctly  summarized  as  follows : 
"Upon  the  whole,  the  writings  of  that  period  are  service- 
able to  us  chiefly,  as  showing  what  can,  and  what  cannot, 
be  effected  by  common-sense  thinking  in  theology.  .  .  . 
If  the  religious  history  of  the  eighteenth  century  proves 
anything  it  is  this :  That  good  sense,  the  best  good  sense, 
when  it  sets  to  work  with  the  materials  of  human  nature 
and  Scripture  to  construct  a  religion,  will  find  its  way  to  an 
ethical  code,  irreproachable  in  its  contents,  and  based  on  a 
just  estimate  and  wise  observation  of  the  facts  of  life,  rati- 
fied by  Divine  sanctions  in  the  shape  of  hope  and  fear.  .  .  . 
This  the  eighteenth  century  did  and  did  well.  It  has 
enforced  the  truths  of  natural  morality  with  a  solidity  of 
argument  and  variety  of  proof  which  they  have  not  received 
since  the  Stoical  epoch,  if  then.  But  there  its  ability 
ended.  When  it  came  to  the  supernatural  part  of  Chris- 
tianity its  embarrassment  began.  It  was  forced  to  keep  it 
as  much  in  the  background  as  possible,  or  to  bolster  it  up 
by  lame  and  inadequate  reasonings.  The  philosophy  of 
common  sense  had  done  its  own  work;  it  attempted  more 
only  to  show,  by  its  failure,  that  some  higher  organon  was 
needed  for  the  establishment  of  supernatural  truth."  ^ 

That  common  sense,  by  which  is  meant  the  sense  men 
have  in  common,  has  its  place  in  theology  and  in  religion, 
few  will  deny.  But  the  fatal  defect  of  the  Georgian  apolo- 
gists lay  in  their  sole  dependence  upon  it.  They  were  also 
too  much  of  one  kind,  men  cast  in  the  same  mold,  who, 

»  Mark  Pattison :   "Essays"  ;   Vol.  II,  pp.  84-86. 


JOHN   WESLEY  281 

while  representing  positive  and  conservative  opinion,  were 
unanimously  agreed  that  emotionalism  was  useless  and 
harmful.  Mediocrity  in  all  else  save  what  they  held  as 
practical  wisdom  was  their  habit;  and  their  beliefs,  while 
having  a  similitude  of  reasonableness,  were  at  heart  narrow 
and  ineffectual.  The  inexorable  march  of  ideas  has  de- 
prived their  thinking  of  its  pertinency,  yet  its  concentration 
on  the  moral  aspects  of  faith  inadvertently  prepared  the 
way  for  that  reaction  of  the  religious  emotions  against  an 
exclusively  intellectual  emphasis  which  made  possible  the 
Evangelical  Revival. 

The  gains  of  their  victory  over  the  deists  were  relatively 
meager :  after  the  controversy  had  collapsed,  its  negative 
side  came  to  the  front,  and  to  such  effect  that  infidelity, 
and  still  more  indifference,  was  commonly  avowed  in  polite 
circles.  Christianity  was  looked  upon  as  merely  an  amiable 
superstition,  which  served  as  a  desirable  safeguard  of  society, 
and  for  that  reason  should  be  maintained.  In  the  "Adver- 
tisement" to  his  "Analogy"  Bishop  Butler  says:  "It  is 
come  I  know  not  how,  to  be  taken  for  granted,  by  many 
persons,  that  Christianity  is  not  so  much  as  a  subject  of 
inquiry ;  but  that  it  is,  now  at  length,  discovered  to  be 
fictitious.  And  accordingly  they  treat  it  as  if  nothing  re- 
mained but  to  set  it  up  as  a  principal  subject  of  mirth  and 
ridicule,  as  it  were  by  way  of  reprisals  for  its  having  so  long 
interrupted  the  pleasures  of  the  world."  And  in  his  charge 
to  the  clergy  of  the  diocese  of  Durham,  delivered  in  1751,^ 
speaking  of  the  general  decay  of  religion  in  the  nation,  he 
declares  that  the  saddest  feature  of  the  age  "is  an  avowed 
scorn  of  religion  in  some  and  a  growing  disregard  of  it  in 
the  generality."  Testimony  of  a  like  kind  is  furnished 
by  works  of  other  writers.  Butler's  "Three  Sermons  on 
Human  Nature,"  while  profound  and  illuminating,  them- 
selves reveal  the  chief  defects  of  the  moral  philosophy  he 
expounded.  Even  the  "Analogy"  confined  itself  to  the  pro- 
vincial issues  of  the  day,  being  in  this  respect  greatly  inferior 


282      THREE    RELIGIOUS  LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

to  Pascal's  "Pensees,"  which  was  concerned  with  specula- 
tions upon  the  higher  and  more  universal  reason.  But  its 
chief  weakness  consisted  in  reducing  religion  to  a  Probabil- 
ism  unable  to  control  human  nature  in  behalf  of  spiritual 
development.  Nor  could  Butler's  style  do  justice  to  the 
native  force  of  his  metaphysic :  "  so  far  from  having  the 
pleasures  of  eloquence,  it  had  not  even  the  comfort  of 
perspicuity."  The  abseace  of  any  freedom  for  flight  into 
the  upper  regions  of  revelation  prompted  Tholuck's  criti- 
cism :  "we  weary  of  a  long  journey  on  foot,  especially  through 
deep  sand."  That  is  it  in  a  word :  the  theology  of  the 
eighteenth  century  had  no  wings. 

The  studied  moderation  of  Butler's  argument  was  adopted 
by  the  clergy,  and  literature  likewise  felt  the  detriment  of 
submission  to  an  undue  subjectivism.  The  marked  dif- 
ference between  the  poetry  of  Dryden  and  that  of  Pope,  or 
the  prose  of  Swift  and  that  of  Addison,  was  analogous  to  the 
contrast  between  the  pulpit  orators  of  the  periods  they 
severally  represented.  The  persistent  needs  of  human 
nature  found  no  relief  in  the  presentation  of  an  atten- 
uated Gospel  powerless  to  make  new  conquests,  or  appease 
the  spiritual  hunger  of  men,  or  kindle  that  enthusiasm 
which  was  the  bugbear  of  the  period.  Not  content  with 
separating  themselves  from  the  slightest  suspicion  of  this 
offense,  the  clergy  were  equally  eager  to  protect  the  good 
name  of  the  apostles  from  its  defilement.  The  substitu- 
tion of  an  ethical  for  a  spiritual  basis  of  religion  ended,  as  it 
must  always  end,  in  languor  and  humiliation;  for  religion 
is  devitalized  the  moment  it  is  lowered  to  the  position  of 
a  mere  purveyor  of  motive  to  morality.  Accommodated 
beliefs  and  articles  were  reiterated  and  argued  until  they 
became  obscure,  justifying  the  satirical  remark  of  Collins, 
that  nobody  doubted  the  existence  of  Deity  until  the  Boyle 
lectures  had  undertaken  to  prove  it. 

The  seriousness  of  the  problem  was  aggravated  by  the  gen- 
eral social  degeneracy,  though  this  eventually  furnished  some 


JOHN   WESLEY  283 

means  for  Its  solution.  The  seething,  festering  masses  of 
unleavened  humanity  had  no  native  aversion  to  goodness; 
indeed  at  bottom  they  were  incurably  religious,  and  when  the 
surfeit  of  sin  began  to  be  felt  they  craved  a  purer  life.  But 
skepticism  had  nothing  to  offer  them,  and  the  ministry  was 
little  better  off :  that  which  it  did  offer  was  not  bread,  and 
the  parochial  system  throughout  England  was  ossified.  The 
energy  of  the  clergy  was  further  dissipated  by  internal  strife 
and  by  quarrels  with  rival  sects,  socially  obscure  but  safe- 
guarded in  their  freedom  by  the  Act  of  Toleration.  Chief 
among  the  controversies  within  the  Church  were  the  non- 
juror schism  and  the  dispute  over  the  doctrine  of  "divine 
right."  ^  During  the  reigns  of  the  first  two  Georges,  these 
causes  of  dissension,  together  with  the  system  of  political 
appointments  to  the  episcopacy,  seriously  impaired  the 
harmony  and  lowered  the  doctrinal  standards  and  religious 
ideals  of  the  Establishment. 

Any  indictment  of  the  clergy  must  be  qualified  by  the  fact 
that  thousands  of  livings  were  without  parsonages  and  their 
incomes  utterly  insufficient  for  the  maintenance  of  the  self- 
respect,  let  alone  the  comfort,  of  the  incumbents.  Bishop 
Burnet  states  in  his  History  that  after  Queen  Anne's  Bounty 
had  somewhat  mitigated  the  poverty  of  the  lesser  clergy,  there 
were  still  hundreds  of  curacies  with  an  income  of  less  than 
twenty  pounds,  and  thousands  with  less  than  fifty  pounds. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  non-residence  became  the  rule  or 
that  Church  fabrics  fell  into  decay.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
can  be  charged  against  bishops  and  deans  that  they  made 
fortunes,  and  used  their  extensive  patronage  for  private 
purposes.  The  gulf  between  the  rich  and  the  poor  clerics 
was  broad  and  deep ;  indeed,  the  rich  frequently  plundered 
the  Church  while  the  poor  suffered  the  consequences.     The 


1  This  doctrine  was  the  one  upon  which  the  Anglican  Church  was  agreed 
and  which  it  emphasized.  It  owed  its  origin  to  the  nationahsm  which  pre- 
vailed at  the  Reformation,  and  was  intended  to  offset  the  papal  claim  to 
supremacy. 


284      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

chosen  few  who  moved  in  the  upper  ranks  of  society  reserved 
their  attention  for  the  affluent,  and  the  dull  round  of  parish 
l^  duty  was  left  to  their  subordinates. 

Indolent  and  worldly  ministers  were  found  within  and 
without  the  Establishment,  more  anxious  to  be  deemed 
respectable  and  rational  than  to  become  effective  servants 
of  the  Gospel  to  their  parishioners.  Even  the  zeal  of  the 
more  excellent  was  tempered  by  their  indulgence  in  mate- 
rial pleasures,  which  Doddridge  attempted  to  justify  because 
of  the  benefit  to  trade.  Yet  care  must  be  taken  not  to  make 
the  condemnation  too  sweeping.  The  sacred  memories  of  such 
shepherds  of  the  flock  as  Bishop  Lancelot  Andrewes,  the 
judicious  Hooker,  George  Herbert  of  Bemerton,  Bishop  Wil- 
son, Isaac  Watts,  and  Nathaniel  Lardner  were  treasured  in 
rectories  and  manses  throughout  the  land.  It  remains  true, 
however,  after  all  extenuations  and  exceptions,  that  spiritual 
as  well  as  material  destitution  marked  the  ministry  at  large. 
The  parson,  with  frayed  cassock  and  seedy  appearance, 
was  too  often  the  lickspittle  of  the  local  magnate,  content 
to  purchase  favor  by  enduring  his  insults  and  obscenities. 
His  education  and  manners  in  most  instances  were  no  more 
than  might  be  expected  in  an  age  so  sordid  that  it  cut  off 
the  supplies  necessary  for  trained  spiritual  overseers.  Some 
of  these  clergymen  lived  godly  and  useful  lives,  and  many 
others  might  have  done  so  had  they  not  been  reduced  to  prac- 
tical vagabondage.  Hired  to  read  prayers  in  the  houses  of 
the  great  at  ten  shillings  a  month,  or  appointed  as  private 
chaplain  to  some  noble  family  where  the  master  treated  him 
as  a  menial  and  the  servants  despised  him  as  a  parasite,  the 
cleric  without  a  benefice  was  jibed  at  as  a  "mess-John,"  a 
"Levite,"  and  a  "trencherman";  placed  below  the  salt  at 
table,  compelled  to  listen  with  feigned  or  real  enjoyment 
to  many  a  bibulous  jest,  and  dismissed  when  the  pastries 
appeared.  Sometimes  he  was  married  off  to  a  woman  of 
no  social  standing  or  even  of  damaged  reputation.  Treated 
thus  by  patrons  and  parishioners,  how  could  the  unfortunate 


JOHN   WESLEY  285 

man  be  otherwise  than  craven  or  cunning,  as  circumstances 
seemed  to  demand?  Nor  was  it  entirely  to  his  discredit 
that  he  should  have  sought  to  mend  his  fortunes  by  dubious 
courses,  and  assuredly  the  ecclesiastics  who  enjoyed  the 
stipends  of  pluralities  were  not  the  men  to  remonstrate. 
The  bishops  appointed  by  the  Hanoverian  Court  were 
first  considered  with  regard,  not  to  their  fitness,  but  to 
their  political  sympathies.  The  cautious  worldliness  which 
characterized  these  prelates  did  not  prevent  grave  scan- 
dals. Some  were  enthroned  by  proxy ;  others  never  visited 
their  sees;  distant  parts  of  the  dioceses  were  left  without 
supervision,  and  in  not  a  few  instances  without  ministra- 
tions of  any  kind.  Generally  speaking,  the  clergy  were  not 
in  any  sense  deeply  religious,  and  to  this  fact  is  primarily 
due  the  tradition  of  shame  which  clings  to  the  Church  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 

Puritanism  had  fallen  from  its  high  estate  long  before 
that  period  and  was  in  the  most  abject  years  of  its 
deterioration.  The  glories  of  such  patriots,  scholars,  and 
saints  as  Hampden,  Pym,  Owen,  and  Baxter  had  faded, 
and  the  hard  angularity  of  mind  of  the  Dissenters 
prejudiced  the  nation  against  them.  Their  participation 
in  political  embroilments,  with  the  subsequent  persecutions 
and  deprivations  inflicted  upon  them,  had  undermined  their 
influence  and  destroyed  the  higher  aims  which  once  ani- 
mated Nonconformity.  Chapels  and  conventicles  were 
frequented  by  adherents  who  prided  themselves  on  their 
independency,  but  whose  doctrines  had  lost  their  appeal. 
The  pluralist,  the  controversialist,  the  man-pleasing,  place- 
hunting  prelate,  the  priest  of  disgraceful  life,  and  the  sec- 
tarian minister  who  moodily  ruminated  on  his  social  sub- 
jection or  preached  Socinianism,  effectually  deprived  the 
nation  of  religious  instruction  and  guidance. 

Passion  for  work,  perseverance,  self-sacrifice,  tranquil 
fidelity,  magnanimity,  devotion  to  the  future,  were  not 
unknown,     but    the     Nonconformist    divine     yielded     to 


286      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

the  conditions  described,  which  also  held  the  parson  of 
the  Established  Church  in  bondage,  and  forced  each 
to  obey  the  conventional  rule.  The  inertia  and  blind- 
ness of  both  underlay  and  accentuated  the  grievous  moral 
situation.  National  conduct  can  be  reformed  in  one 
way  only :  by  the  recovery  of  the  consciousness  of  the 
Eternal  in  a  renewed  sense  of  those  relations  between  God 
and  man  which  make  the  creature  truly  devout;  and  any 
nation  which  is  not  in  this  meaning  a  Church  will  not  long 
remain  a  State.  Herein  lay  the  essential  infirmity  of  the-^ 
English  people  :  they  had  forgotten  God ;  and,  because  they 
had  forgotten  God,  they  fearfully  forgot  themselves.  What 
freedom  they  had,  subserved  the  riotous  pleasures  and  pur- 
suits upon  which  the  best  and  wisest  among  them  looked  with 
grave  apprehension.  The  appreciation  of  the  duties  and 
responsibilities  of  moral  beings,  and  the  ambition  to  domesti- 
cate the  virtues  and  to  purify  society  with  the  principles  of 
Christianity,  had  alike  vanished.  Religion,  in  its  truest 
significance,  as  the  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man,  the  saving 
element  in  creeds  and  sects,  the  source  of  evangelizing 
aggressiveness  and  of  what  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  calls  "a 
sense  of  social  compunction,"  was  little  known  by  the  men 
and  women  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Because  of  this 
fatal  ignorance  the  intellectual  classes  became  the  prey  of 
infidelity;  the  clerical,  of  indifference;  the  profane,  of 
blasphemy  and  license;  and  the  masses,  of  turpitude  and 
lawlessness. 

HI 

This,  then,  was  the  nation  which  confronted  Wesley  with 
its  almost  insuperable  tyranny  of  wrong  thinking  and  wrong 
doing.  Yet  such  a  state  could  not  persist  forever  among  a 
people  whose  past  had  been  deeply  ingrained  with  Christian 
ideas  and  whose  territories  were  covered  with  symbols  of 
religious  devotion.     In  his  "Vision  of  Saints,"  Lewis  Morris 


JOHN   WESLEY  287 

sees  the  "apostolic  form"  of  Wesley  "blessing  our  land," 
and  speaks  of  his  having 

"Relit  the  expiring  fire,  which  sloth  and  sense 
And  the  sad  world's  unfaith  had  well-nigh  quenched 
And  left  in  ashes." 

The  flame  then  kindled  by  the  regenerate  soul  of  this  master 
spirit  rose  high  and  spread  far.  But  before  he  began  his 
work  other  men  had  prepared  the  way  for  it.  Reference 
has  been  made  to  the  writings  of  Law  and  also  to  the 
Moravian  teachings  that  led  Wesley  into  Christian  life 
and  peace.  Prior  to  these,  however,  was  the  establish- 
ment in  the  Anglican  Church  of  religious  societies  which 
had  an  organic  connection  with  earlier  German  pietism,  and 
anticipated  the  class  meeting  which  afterwards  became  the 
nucleus  of  Methodism.  These  associations  were  founded 
by  Dr.  Smithies  of  St.  Giles'  Church,  Cripplegate,  and  Dr. 
Horneck,  Lutheran  minister  at  the  Savoy  Chapel;  their 
principal  features  being  a  close  connection  with  the  State 
Church  and  a  pronounced  evangelistic  tendency.  When 
they  declined  in  usefulness  other  kindred  organizations  arose, 
less  restricted  in  their  aims,  which  in  turn  gave  birth,  in  1670, 
to  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign 
Parts,  and,  in  1698,  to  the  Society  for  Promoting  Christian 
Knowledge. 

Such  signs  and  tokens  were  by  no  means  limited  to  Eng- 
land. In  Northampton,  Massachusetts,  in  1729,  the  very 
year  the  Oxford  Methodists  formed  the  Holy  Club,  a 
revival  which  profoundly  affected  the  entire  Colony  took 
place  under  the  ministry  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  who  de- 
clared, "The  new  Jerusalem  had  begun  to  come  down 
from  heaven,  and  perhaps  never  were  more  prelibations  of 
heaven's  glory  given."  Sunultaneously  the  provinces  of 
Wales  felt  a  similar  unpulse,  where  Howel  Harris  was,  to 
quote  Whitefield,  "a  burning  and  shining  light,  a  barrier 
against    profanity  and    immorality,  and    an    indefatigable 


288      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

promoter  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ."  Scotland  also  expe- 
rienced an  awakening  of  which  the  Reverend  James  Robe 
of  Kilsyth  published  an  account  in  1742,  telling  of  its 
spread  to  many  cities  and  towns  of  the  northern  kingdom. 
Thus  in  places  so  far  apart  as  Germany  and  New  England, 
and  under  pastors  and  evangelists  as  widely  separated  in 
theology  and  method  as  Edwards,  Harris,  and  Zinzendorf, 
thousands  of  penitents  received  blessing,  and  their  lives  bore 
witness  to  the  genuineness  of  the  change. 

Almost  immediately  after  his  conversion  Wesley  visited 
the  Moravian  settlement  at  Herrnhut,  in  order  that  by  fur- 
ther conversation  with  "those  holy  men  he  might  establish 
his  soul."  On  his  way  thither  he  was  received  at  Marien- 
born  by  Count  Zinzendorf.  It  would  appear  that  each  was 
disappointed  in  the  other,  and  Wesley  proceeded  on  July  19, 
1738,  to  Herrnhut,  where  he  remained  for  three  weeks,  at- 
tending the  services  of  the  Brethren,  and  conversing  with 
the  teachers  and  elders  upon  their  doctrines  and  discipline. 
He  conceived  a  warm  affection  for  them,  and  especially  for 
that  remarkable  saint.  Christian  David,  who  deserves  a 
more  adequate  remembrance.  An  unlettered  man,  he  was 
twenty  years  of  age  before  he  saw  a  Bible ;  yet  at  twenty- 
seven  he  had  become  a  prominent  preacher  among  his 
countrymen,  afterwards  establishing  the  first  missions  in 
Greenland,  and  making  excursions  into  Holland,  Denmark, 
and  England.  Wesley,  scholar  and  priest  as  he  was,  sat 
at  his  feet,  and  wrote  to  his  brother  Samuel,  "God  has 
given  me  at  length  the  desire  of  my  heart.  I  am  with  a 
church  whose  conversation  is  in  heaven;  in  whom  is  the 
mindthat  was  in  Christ,  and  who  so  walk  as  He  walked.  .  .  . 
Oh  how  high  and  holy  a  thing  Christianity  is !  and  how 
widely  distinct  from  that  —  I  know  not  what  —  which  is  so 
called,  though  it  neither  purifies  the  heart,  nor  renews  the 
life,  after  the  image  of  our  blessed  Redeemer!"  Yet  a 
hint  of  his  subsequent  rejection  of  some  articles  of  the  Mora- 
vian teaching  was  conveyed  in  the  courteous  letter  of  thanks 


JOHN   WESLEY  289 

addressed  to  Zinzendorf  and  dated  from  London  on  Sep- 
tember 16,  in  which  he  says:  "The  love  and  zeal  of  our 
brethren  in  Holland  and  Germany,  particularly  at  Herrnhut, 
have  stirred  up  many  among  us,  who  will  not  be  comforted 
till  they  also  partake  of  the  great  and  precious  promises.  I 
hope  to  see  them  at  least  once  more,  were  it  only  to  speak 
freely  on  a  few  things  which  I  did  not  approve,  perhaps  be- 
cause I  did  not  understand  them."  ^  What  those  things 
were  can  be  surmised  from  the  contents  of  a  second  letter, 
which  was  not  dispatched,  complaining  of  their  adulation  of 
the  Count  and  of  their  communion;  of  their  reserve  and 
dissimulation;  in  brief,  of  those  failings  which  are  more 
or  less  incident  to  a  life  of  subjective  piety  unrelated  to 
human  affairs. 

Wesley  now  rejoined  Charles  in  labors  among  the  social 
wreckage  of  the  metropolis,  preaching  as  often  as  pos- 
sible, and  ministering  to  the  prisoners  in  the  jails.  The 
brothers  also  obtained  an  interview  with  Dr.  Gibson,  the 
Bishop  of  London,  that  they  might  explain  their  methods 
and  secure  his  approval.  This  prelate,  who  was  highly  re- 
spected for  tact  and  prudence,  failed  to  appreciate  the  oppor- 
tunity he  now  had  to  render  a  lasting  service  both  to  the 
cause  of  religion  and  to  his  Church.  The  Anglican  epis- 
copacy has  often  shown  an  ineptitude  for  wise  and  cour- 
ageous action  at  similar  crises,  and  in  this  respect  com- 
pares unfavorably  with  the  more  alert  hierarchy  of  Rome. 
The  Wesleys  were  in  no  sense  aliens  or  rebels ;  in  fact 
both  were  stricter  Anglicans  than  the  bishop  himself, 
whose  timid  low  churchmanship  appeared  in  his  answer 
to  their  question,  "Are  the  Societies  conventicles?"  "I 
think  not,"  he  replied;  "however,  you  can  read  the  acts 
and  laws  as  well  as  I,  —  I  determine  nothing,"  —  an  un- 
happy conclusion  applicable  to  himself  and  his  brethren  in 
more  senses  than  one. 

Others,  though  equally  helpless,  were  not  so  acquiescent 

I  R.  Southey  :   "Life  of  Wesley"  ;   pp.  104-105. 


290      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

as  Gibson.  The  doughty  Warburton,  afterwards  Bishop  of 
Gloucester,  that  "knock-kneed  giant"  of  debate  who  had 
distinguished  himself  in  the  deistic  controversy  as  a  belli- 
cose cleric  of  whom  it  may  be  said 

"That  twice  he  routed  all  his  foes 
And  twice  he  slew  the  slain," 

now  fell  foul  of  Methodism.  Writing  to  an  acquaintance,  he 
inquired,  "Have  you  heard  of  our  new  set  of  fanatics,  called 
the  Methodists  ?  There  is  one  Wesley,  who  told  a  friend  of 
mine  that  he  had  lived  most  deliciously  last  summer  in 
Georgia,  sleeping  under  trees,  and  feeding  on  boiled  maize 
sauced  with  the  ashes  of  oak  leaves ;  and  that  he  will  return 
thither,  and  then  will  cast  off  his  English  dress,  and  wear  a 
dried  skin,  like  the  savages,  the  better  to  ingratiate  himself 
with  them.  It  would  be  well  for  virtue  and  religion  if  this 
humor  would  lay  hold  generally  of  our  over-heated  bigots, 
and  send  them  to  cool  themselves  in  the  Indian  marshes."  ^ 
This  ranting  abuse,  of  which  Warburton  was  more  than 
once  guilty,  was  the  keynote  of  other  attacks  made  upon 
the  Wesleys,  and  showed  that  they  had  little  to  expect 
from  the  clergy  except  misrepresentation  and  slander. 
By  the  close  of  the  year  John  was  almost  uniformly 
excluded  from  the  pulpits  of  the  Establishment.  While 
the  storm  of  opposition  was  closing  in  upon  him  and  his 
followers  he  met  with  his  brother  Charles,  George  White- 
field  and  others  of  like  mind  at  Fetter  Lane  to  celebrate 
the  last  hours  of  that  annus  mirabilis  of  1738  in  solemn 
acts  of  prayer,  praise,  and  renewed  consecration. 

Whitefield,  who  has  already  been  named  as  an  Oxford 
student,  a  member  of  the  Holy  Club,  and  a  close  friend 
and  admirer  of  Wesley,  was  the  youngest  and  at  that  time 
the  best  known  of  the  three  men.  He  was  born  December 
16,  1714,  at  the  Bell  Inn,  Gloucester,  of  which  his  father  was 
then  the  tenant.     His  general  worth  and  gift  for  elocution 

1  L.  Tyerman :   "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  208. 


JOHN   WESLEY  291 

procured  him  friends  who  assisted  him  in  obtaining  a  Uni- 
versity education.  He  was  ordained  deacon  in  1736,  and 
delivered  his  first  sermon  in  the  magnificent  Cathedral  of 
his  native  city.  He  then  began  an  itinerary  through 
the  western  provinces  of  England,  and  also  in  London, 
where  he  attracted  immense  audiences ;  indeed,  his  name 
quickly  became  a  household  word  in  Bath,  Bristol,  and  the 
capital.  After  his  return  from  Georgia  to  receive  priest's 
orders  and  collect  money  for  the  orphanage  he  had  founded 
there,  he  was  included  in  the  marked  disapproval  the  clergy 
had  shown  toward  the  Wesleys,  and  with  characteristic 
impetuosity  he  at  once  commenced  field  preaching.  When 
the  churches  of  Bristol  were  closed  against  him  he  re- 
paired to  Rose  Hill,  just  outside  the  city,  and  there  faced 
the  grimy  pitmen  and  laborers  who  were  the  terror  of  the 
locality,  subduing  them  by  his  dramatic  utterance.  The 
entranced  listeners  quailed  beneath  his  fervid,  searching 
appeals;  their  deadened  sensibilities  were  so  aroused  that, 
as  he  afterwards  described  the  scene,  tears  of  penitence 
channeled  "white  gutters  on  their  blackened  cheeks."  As 
the  throngs  increased,  he  wrote,  —  "The  open  firmament 
above  me,  the  prospect  of  adjacent  fields  with  the  sight  of 
thousands  and  thousands,  some  in  coaches,  some  on  horse- 
back, and  some  in  the  trees,  and  at  all  times  affected  and 
drenched  in  tears  together,  to  which  sometimes  was  added 
the  solemnity  of  approaching  evening,  was  almost  too  much 
for  me  and  quite  overcame  me."  He  left  Bristol  escorted 
by  a  guard  of  honor  composed  of  his  converts  and  friends 
and  with  a  handsome  subscription  for  a  charity  school  to  be 
established  among  them;  a  project  eventually  carried  out 
by  Wesley  at  Kingswood. 

Before  the  midsummer  of  1739  Whitefield  repeated  his 
triumphs  in  London,  where  his  audiences  at  Hyde  Park, 
Blackheath,  Moorfields,  and  Kennington  Common  were  the 
sensation  of  the  town.  He  asserts  that  eighty  thousand 
persons   assembled   at   one   time;   although   this    estimate 


292      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

was  probably  exaggerated,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  few  have  addressed  larger  gatherings  for  a  similar 
purpose  or  served  them  to  a  better  end.  The  Thames  water- 
men could  not  ferry  over  all  the  people  determined  to  hear 
him,  suburbs  and  slums  were  emptied  while  his  sermons 
were  in  progress,  and  their  effect  was  acknowledged  by  the 
educated  as  well  as  the  illiterate.  Foremost  among  his 
supporters  was  Lady  Huntingdon,  regarded  by  some  as  the 
most  remarkable  woman  of  her  age  and  country,  an  aristo- 
crat whose  life  was  "a  beautiful  course  of  hallowed  labor" 
and  her  death  "the  serene  setting  of  a  sun  of  brilliant  hue." 
Among  others  of  rank  who  flocked  to  hear  him  were  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  the  Duchess 
of  Ancaster,  Lady  Townshend,  I^ady  Franklin,  Lady  Hin- 
chinbroke.  Lord  Bolingbroke,  Lord  Chesterfield,  Lord 
Lyttleton,  Lord  North,  Bubb  Doddington,  George  Selwyn, 
and  William  Pitt.  David  Garrick  remarked  that  he  would 
give  his  whole  fortune  to  be  able  to  pronounce  the  single 
word  "Mesopotamia"  with  the  pathos  and  power  he  had 
heard  Whitefield  put  into  it.  Horace  Walpole,  who  had  a 
keen  eye  for  foibles,  noted  that  "Methodism  in  the  me- 
tropolis is  more  fashionable  than  anything  but  brag.  The 
women  play  very  deep  at  both,  as  deep,  it  is  much  suspected, 
as  the  matrons  of  Rome  did  at  the  mysteries  of  Bona  Dea." 
And  again,  writing  to  Sir  Horace  Mann,  his  lifelong  corre- 
spondent, he  said,  "If  you  ever  think  of  returning  to  Eng- 
land, you  must  prepare  yourself  for  Methodism.  .  .  .  Lady 
Frances  Shirley  has  chosen  this  way  of  bestowing  the  dregs 
of  her  beauty :  Mr.  Lyttleton  is  very  near  making  the  same 
sacrifice  of  the  dregs  of  all  the  characters  he  has  worn.  The 
Methodists  love  your  big  sinners,  as  proper  subjects  to  work 
on,  and,  indeed,  they  have  a  plentiful  harvest.  Flagrance 
was  never  more  in  fashion,  drinking  is  at  the  high  water 
mark." 

That  a  young  clergyman  not  yet  twenty-six  should  have 
compelled  the  attention  Whitefield  received  from  high  and 


JOHN   WESLEY  293 

lowly  was  in  itself  significant.  His  facial  appearance  was 
not  altogether  prepossessing,  but  in  earlier  manhood  his 
well-proportioned  figure  and  superb  voice  made  him,  like 
Danton,  the  tribune  of  the  open  spaces.  Exuberant  physi- 
cal energy,  sincerity  of  conviction  and  earnestness  of  manner, 
lent  weight  even  to  his  unguarded  statements.  He  could 
denounce  the  treacheries  of  sin,  describe  the  doom  of  the 
sinner,  enforce  the  remedies  of  the  Gospel,  and  comfort  the 
sorrows  of  the  penitent  with  winged  and  irresistible  words. 
Dr.  Doddridge,  Dr.  Isaac  Watts,  and  others  competent  to 
judge  objected  to  his  excessive  emotionalism ;  but,  al- 
though its  modification  might  have  avoided  some  undesir- 
able results,  it  would  have  deprived  him  of  his  chief  element 
of  power  as  an  unrivaled  orator.  He  was  neither  a  philoso- 
pher nor  a  theologian,  but,  what  was  more  rare  than  either, 
an  evangelist  whose  heart  had  been  fired  and  his  lips 
anointed  to  proclaim  the  saving  message  of  the  Cross  to  a 
moribund  generation. 

The  most  profitable  outcome  of  his  work  was  its  formative 
influence  upon  Wesley,  who  not  only  emulated  Whitefield's 
example  as  a  field  preacher,  but  garnered  much  of  the 
harvest  of  his  sowing.  Early  in  March,  1739,  he  received 
a  message  from  Whitefield  urgently  soliciting  his  presence 
and  help  in  Bristol.  Fully  employed  as  he  was  at  the  time, 
Wesley  was  reluctant  to  leave  London,  and  his  brother 
Charles  vehemently  opposed  his  doing  this.  In  their  per- 
plexity they  reverted  to  the  customary  practice  of  sortes 
Bihlicoe,  the  results  of  which  were  not  encouraging  until 
Charles,  making  a  last  attempt,  opened  at  the  words,  — 
"Son  of  man,  behold,  I  take  from  thee  the  desires  of  thine 
eyes  with  a  stroke ;  yet  neither  shalt  thou  mourn  nor  weep, 
neither  shall  thy  tears  run  down."  Upon  this  he  withdrew 
his  opposition,  and  John  decided  to  go  to  Bristol. 

This  was  the  turning  point  in  Wesley's  public  career. 
He  was  about  to  take  a  step  that  would  separate  him  from 
his  ecclesiastical  superiors  and  brethren,  and  cost  him  the 


294      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

confidence  and  affection  of  the  Church  of  his  birth  and 
training,  nor  is  it  Ukely  that  he  was  sustained  by  any  pre- 
vision of  the  outcome  which  waited  upon  his  temerity. 
Preaching  on  unconsecrated  ground,  to  say  nothing  of 
addressing  promiscuous  gatherings  which  were  never  more 
secularized  in  feehng  than  at  that  time,  was  considered  by 
even  the  best  of  Anghcans  a  disorderly  act,  a  disturbance  of 
the  peace  of  Church  and  State.  Reluctant  to  the  last,  on 
hearing  Whitefield  preach  in  the  open  air,  Wesley  com- 
mented, "I  could  scarcely  reconcile  myself  at  first  to  this 
strange  way  of  which  he  set  me  an  example  on  Sunday ; 
having  been  all  my  life  till  very  lately  so  tenacious  of  every 
point  relating  to  decency  and  order,  that  I  should  have 
thought  the  saving  of  souls  almost  a  sin  if  it  had  not  been 
done  in  a  church."  Notwithstanding,  on  April  2,  1739,  a 
date  next  in  importance  to  that  of  his  conversion,  he  "sub- 
mitted to  be  more  vile,"  and  standing  on  a  grassy  mound 
addressed  a  great  crowd  from  the  words,  "The  Spirit  of 
the  Lord  is  upon  me,  because  He  hath  anointed  me  to 
preach  the  Gospel  to  the  poor."  The  appropriateness  of 
the  text  to  the  events  which  had  brought  him  to  that  place 
and  hour  was  only  equaled  by  its  prophetic  character.  He 
deliberately  rejected  the  earthly  prizes  of  his  calling  that  he 
might  proclaim  the  religion  of  the  New  Testament  to  men 
and  women  who  were  looked  upon  by  the  more  refined  as 
hopeless  barbarians.  Yet  no  Christian  statesman  could 
have  issued  a  better  justification  for  this  extraordinary  pro- 
cedure than  is  contained  in  the  opening  paragraphs  of 
his  "  Earnest  Appeal  to  Men  of  Faith  and  Religion."  After 
comparing  the  formal  and  lifeless  professions  then  prevalent 
with  the  renewing  energy  the  Methodists  had  experienced, 
he  showed  how  he  and  his  friends  had  stumbled  in  the 
gloom  of  past  days,  having  none  to  guide  them  into  "the 
straight  way  to  the  religion  of  love,  even  by  faith."  "By 
this  faith,"  he  continued,  "we  are  saved  from  all  uneasi- 
ness of  mind,  from  the  anguish  of  a  wounded  spirit,  from 


JOHN  WESLEY  295 

discontent,  from  fear  and  sorrow  of  heart,  and  from  that 
inexpressible  Hstlessness  and  weariness,  both  of  the  world  and 
ourselves,  which  we  had  so  helplessly  labored  under  for 
many  years,  especially  when  we  were  out  of  the  hurry  of  the 
world  and  sunk  into  calm  reflection.  In  this  we  find  that 
love  of  God  and  of  all  mankind  which  we  had  elsewhere 
sought  in  vain.  This,  we  know  and  feel,  and  therefore 
cannot  but  declare,  saves  every  one  that  partakes  of  it  both 
from  sin  and  misery,  from  every  unhappy  and  every  unloved 
temper."  ^ 

This  manifesto,  so  lucid,  emphatic,  and  unanswerable 
by  those  who  accepted  Christianity  at  all,  is  quoted  as  a 
first-rate  specimen  of  the  statements  which  exposed  Wesley 
to  the  censure  of  Anglican  dignitaries  and  of  the  learned  and 
the  worldly.  The  ecclesiastical  authorities  were  provoked 
against  Methodism  because  it  violated  their  rule  and  rebuked 
their  failure ;  the  devotees  of  fashion  and  culture  because  it 
disturbed  their  complacency  and  pride.  Neither  had  any 
desire  to  leave  their  protected  shores  and  venture  after 
Wesley  into  the  agitated  deeps  of  undisciplined  human  life. 
They  were  repelled  by  the  noise  and  confusion  of  its  emo- 
tional outbreaks  and  were  too  punctiliously  correct  to  be 
anything  more  than  nominally  religious.  Whitefield  was 
patronized  by  some  among  them  who  endured  his  opinions 
for  the  pleasure  of  listening  to  his  oratory,  but  Wesley's 
putting  of  the  same  truths  aroused  their  indignant  remon- 
strance. Yet  his  "Appeal"  and  his  sermons  were  in  sub- 
stance the  accepted  doctrines  of  their  own  Church,  and  better 
still,  a  fair  presentation  of  the  teaching  and  spirit  of  the 
New  Testament.  In  them  he  showed  himself  a  master  of 
the  proper  sentiment  and  the  fitting  word.  Without  strain- 
ing after  grandiloquence,  in  language  the  chief  notes  of  which 
were  sincerity,  simplicity,  and  restraint,  with  every  appear- 
ance of  unstudied  utterance,  he  discovered  the  secrets  of 
many  hearts  and  applied  to  them  the  blessings  of  pardon  and 

'  John  Telford  :   "  The  Life  of  John  Wesley "  ;   pp.  112-113. 


V 

4 


^ 


296      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

restoration.  Old  fustian  and  purple  patches  were  not 
tolerated,  yet  the  phrase  that  uplifts,  the  feeling  that  is  most 
intense  when  most  repressed,  the  intellectual  rather  than 
the  clamorous  accent,  enabled  him  to  make  the  deepest  im- 
pression of  any  preacher  of  his  age.  His  speech  combined 
abundance  with  economy,  the  little  with  the  much.  Its 
form  was  concise,  its  meaning  infinite,  its  character  luminous. 
There  were  more  accomplished  thinkers  and  rhetoricians 
than  Wesley,  but  as  an  advocate  of  religion  and  an  organizer 
of  its  forces  he  was  unsurpassed.  The  level  reaches  and 
tranquil  flow  of  his  discourse  were  sometimes  stirred  by  a 
divine  afflatus  of  which  his  hearers  afterwards  spoke  with 
bated  breath ;  the  pillars  of  the  sanctuary  seemed  to  tremble, 
the  Eternal  One  Himself  bowed  the  heavens  and  came  down, 
while  all  the  people  stood  in  awe  of  Him,  and  the  souls  of 
the  worshipers  were  shaken  by  the  winds  of  God.  John 
Nelson,  a  well-poised  Yorkshireman,  has  left  a  forceful  de- 
scription of  Wesley  which  amplifies  the  difference  between 
him  and  Whitefield  in  that  respect.  "Whitefield  was  to  me 
as  a  man  who  could  play  well  on  an  instrument,  for  his 
preaching  was  pleasant  to  me  and  I  loved  the  man  .  .  .  but 
I  did  not  understand  him.  I  was  like  a  wandering  bird 
cast  out  of  its  nest  till  Mr.  John  Wesley  came  to  preach 
his  first  sermon  at  Moorfields.  ...  As  soon  as  he  got 
upon  the  stand,  he  stroked  back  his  hair  and  turned  his 
face  towards  where  I  stood,  and,  I  thought,  fixed  his  eyes 
upon  me.  His  countenance  fixed  such  an  awful  dread  upon 
me,  before  I  heard  him  speak,  that  it  made  my  heart  beat 
like  the  pendulum  of  a  clock ;  and  when  he  did  speak,  I 
thought  his  whole  discourse  was  aimed  at  me.  When 
he  had  done,  I  said,  'This  man  can  tell  me  the  secrets  of 
my  heart ;  he  hath  not  left  me  there ;  for  he  hath  showed 
the  remedy,  even  the  blood  of  Jesus,'  ...  I  durst  not  look 
up,  for  I  imagined  all  the  people  were  looking  at  me.  Be- 
fore Mr.  Wesley  concluded  his  sermon  he  cried  out,  'Let 
the  wicked  man  forsake  his  way,  and  the  unrighteous  man 


JOHN   WESLEY  297 

his  thoughts;  and  let  him  return  unto  the  Lord,  and  He 
will  have  mercy  upon  him ;  and  to  our  God,  for  He  will 
abundantly  pardon.'  I  said  if  that  be  true,  I  will  turn  to 
God  to-day." 

Although  Wesley  was  short  of  stature  and  slight  of  build, 
his  personal  appearance  was  benign  and  commanding. 
His  carriage  was  erect  and  graceful,  and  in  that  time  of  wigs 
he  wore  his  own  hair  long,  parted  in  the  middle,  and  falling 
upon  his  shoulders  with  a  slight  curl.  Austerity  and  be- 
nevolence were  harmoniously  blended  in  his  bearing;  his 
voice,  which  he  carefully  modulated,  was  melodious  and  pen- 
etrating; his  movements  agile  and  dignified.  The  slightly 
feminine  cast  of  his  clean  shaven  face  and  robed  figure  was 
balanced  by  the  masculine  strength  of  his  profile,  with  its 
Roman  nose  and  firm  mouth.  In  the  gallery  of  beautiful 
and  impressive  faces  of  renowned  men,  such  as  those  of 
Shakespeare,  Milton,  Goethe,  and  the  youthful  Burns,  a 
place  has  been  rightly  given  to  that  of  Wesley,  who  resem- 
bled Milton  more  than  any  other  great  Englishman,  not  only 
in  physical  appearance  but  to  some  extent  in  spiritual  com- 
plexion. Richard  Watson  Gilder  in  his  Ode  to  Wesley, 
exclaims : 

"In  those  clear,  piercing,  piteous  eyes  behold 
The  very  soul  that  over  England  flamed  1" 

They  retained  to  the  last  the  searching  expression  which 
Nelson  had  noted,  and  numerous  contemporaries  spoke  of  the 
glance,  swift  to  encourage,  steadfast  to  control,  before  which 
the  dainty  exquisite  Beau  Nash  and  the  mobs  of  the  Mid- 
land shires  alike  shrank. 

Whitefield's  energies  were  divided  long  before  he  died, 
and  Charles  Wesley's  itinerant  preaching,  which  began 
with  promise,  practically  ended  after  his  marriage,  but  John 
continued  his  beneficent  journeyings  to  the  end  of  life.  In 
them  he  kept  to  the  centers  of  industrial  population,  leav- 
ing the  remoter  regions  to  be  afterwards  evangelized  by  his 


298      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

helpers.  London,  Bristol,  and  Newcastle  were  the  points  of 
an  isosceles  triangle  which  included  the  principal  areas  of 
his  mission.  Not  a  moment  of  the  long  day  was  lost; 
he  rose  at  four,  frequently  preached  at  five,  and  then 
rode,  or  in  his  older  years  drove,  over  wretched  roads  to  his 
appointments.  Nothing  was  allowed  to  disturb  the  schedule, 
the  intervals  of  which,  when  he  tarried  at  an  inn  or  at  the 
home  of  a  friend,  were  occupied  in  reading  or  in  making 
notes,  in  writing  tracts  and  pamphlets  and  in  conducting  an 
interminable  correspondence.  Duty  wisely  and  scrupu- 
lously carried  out  according  to  a  fixed  program  never  had 
a  more  faithful  disciple.  His  love  of  orderliness,  a  good 
index  of  the  mind,  was  seen  not  only  in  the  neatness  of  his 
dress  but  in  every  particular  of  his  life.  Wherever  he  might 
be,  he  was  satisfied,  absorbed,  detached,  free  from  vexation 
of  spirit,  and  able  to  pursue  his  meditations,  whether  among 
the  wild  hills  of  Wales  or  tossing  on  the  Irish  Sea,  or  in  the 
bleak  and  inhospitable  fastnesses  of  the  Cornish  coast.  He 
crossed  St.  George's  Channel  nearly  fifty  times,  and  traveled 
250,000  miles  on  land  —  this  when  there  were  no  turnpikes 
in  the  north  of  England,  and  the  London  stage  coaches 
did  not  run  beyond  York.  In  June,  1750,  he  was  nearly 
twenty  hours  in  the  saddle  and  covered  ninety  miles  in  one 
day;  in  1778  he  speaks  of  having  made  280  miles  in  48 
hours,  and  in  the  winter  weather  of  Scotland  he  rode  an  equal 
distance  in  six  days.  His  northern  route  in  February,  1745, 
was  one  of  the  severest  he  ever  undertook.  Gateshead 
Fell  was  covered  with  snow,  no  roads  were  visible ;  wind, 
hail,  and  sleet,  accompanied  by  intense  cold,  made  the  coun- 
try one  sheet  of  impassable  ice.  The  horses  fell  down  and 
had  to  be  led  by  Wesley  and  his  companions,  who  were 
guided  by  a  Newcastle  man  into  the  town.  The  following 
winter  he  was  crusted  from  head  to  foot  by  a  blizzard  as  he 
struggled  on  from  Birmingham  to  Stafford.  In  1747  the 
drifts  almost  swallowed  him  upon  Stamford  Heath.  In  his 
eighty-third  year  he  was  as  fearlessly  energetic  as  ever.  While 


JOHN  WESLEY  299 

travelling  in  the  "Delectable  Duchy"  he  came  to  Hayle, 
on  his  way  to  preach  at  St.  Ives.  The  sands  between  the 
towns  were  covered  with  a  rising  tide,  and  a  sea  captain 
begged  the  old  hero  to  wait  until  it  had  receded.  But  he 
had  to  be  at  St.  Ives  by  a  given  time,  and  he  called  to  his 
coachman,  "  Take  the  sea !  take  the  sea ! "  At  first  the  horses 
waded ;  ere  long  they  were  swimming,  and  the  man  on 
the  box  feared  that  all  would  be  drowned.  Wesley  put  his 
head  out  of  the  carriage  window  to  encourage  him  —  "  What 
is  your  name,  driver?"  he  inquired.  "Peter,  sir,"  was  the 
reply.  "Peter,  fear  not;  thou  shalt  not  sink,"  exclaimed 
the  patriarch.  When  they  reached  St.  Ives,  after  attend- 
ing to  Peter's  comfort,  he  went  into  the  pulpit,  drenched 
as  he  was,  and  preached.  The  philosophical  coolness  and 
brevity  with  which  he  recorded  these  and  similar  adven- 
tures show  that  he  regarded  them  as  merely  incidental  to 
that  cause  he  had  assigned  as  the  sole  purpose  of  his  exist- 
ence, and  to  which  he  consecrated  all  his  gifts.  He  delivered 
forty-two  thousand  sermons  in  fifty  years,  an  average  of 
over  fifteen  a  week.  He  was  beyond  seventy  when  thirty 
thousand  people  gathered  to  hear  him  in  the  natural  amphi- 
theater at  Gwennap  Pit,  Cornwall.  Ten  years  later  he 
wrote,  "I  have  entered  the  eighty-third  year  of  my  age. 
I  am  a  wonder  to  myself,  I  am  never  tired,  either  with 
preaching,  writing,  or  travelling."  By  no  preconcerted 
scheme,  nor  under  the  impulse  of  the  moment,  but  calmly, 
deliberately,  and  with  the  love  that  endures  to  the  end, 
Wesley  became  the  most  devoted,  laborious,  and  successful 
evangehst  the  Christian  Church  has  known  since  Apostolic 
days. 

He  had  read  with  amazement  of  the  physical  contortions 
and  convulsions  during  the  New  England  Revival,  little 
dreaming  that  his  renewed  ministry  would  produce  such  phe- 
nomena. He  had  no  more  than  begun  it,  however,  when  at 
a  service  in  Baldwin  Street  Meeting  House,  Bristol,  he  could 
scarcely  be  heard  for  the  groanings  and  wailings  of  stricken 


300      THREE    RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

penitents.  In  the  audience  sat  a  Friend  who  was  annoyed 
by  what  appeared  to  him  unseemly  pretense,  till  he  himself 
was  carried  away  by  the  same  resistless  feeling,  for  the  time 
being  losing  all  self-possession,  and  declaring  on  his  recovery, 
"Now  I  know  that  thou  art  a  prophet  of  the  Lord."  Al- 
though the  greater  number  of  these  seizures  occurred  in 
small  crowded  rooms,  there  were  instances  of  persons  affected 
in  like  manner  in  their  homes.  John  Haydon,  by  profession 
an  Anglican,  and  a  man  of  good  standing,  who  had  hitherto 
regarded  such  outbreaks  as  of  the  devil,  while  seated  in  his 
own  house,  reading  a  sermon  on  "Salvation  by  Faith," 
suddenly  fell  writhing  to  the  floor.  Wesley,  who  was  in  the 
vicinity,  hastened  to  Haydon's  relief.  "Aye,"  cried  the 
smitten  one  on  his  recovery,  "this  is  he  who  I  said  was  a 
deceiver  of  the  people ;  but  God  has  overtaken  me.  I  said 
it  was  all  a  delusion ;  but  this  is  no  delusion."  These  ebulli- 
tions were  in  the  main  as  unsought  by  Wesley  as  they  were 
surprising  to  him,  nor  did  the  whole  series  amount  to  more 
than  a  passing  incident.  His  Journal  and  letters  mention 
only  about  sixty  cases,  an  insignificant  number  when  the 
thousands  of  his  converts  are  recalled  ;  a  few  were  extremely 
painful  and  prolonged,  the  rest  comparatively  mild  and  brief. 
His  explanation  of  them  was  derived  from  the  dreams, 
trances,  and  visions  of  Biblical  report.  But  he  added  that 
after  a  time  natural  depravity  polluted  the  work  of  grace, 
which  Satan  cunningly  imitated  in  order  to  defeat  its  ends ; 
so  that,  while  the  hand  of  Deity  was  undoubtedly  present  in 
these  mysterious  events,  Satan's  was  no  less  evident  —  "a 
singular  cooperation,"  as  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  observes,  "be- 
tween God  and  the  devil."  Many  subjects  of  these 
manifestations,  however,  proved  by  their  after  life  the 
reality  of  a  gratifying  change  of  heart  coincident  with  the 
seizures.  Later  simulations,  some  of  which  were  quickly 
detected  and  silenced,  modified  Wesley's  belief  in  their 
value.  In  a  letter  to  his  brother  Samuel,  who  was  alarmed 
by  the  wild  rumors  which  spread  abroad  concerning  John's 


JOHN   WESLEY  301 

preaching,  he  protested  that  his  work  should  not  be  judged 
by  outward  signs,  whatever  might  be  their  cause,  but  by 
its  true  element;  that  quickening  spirit,  a  greater  wonder 
than  any  other  recorded,  which  remade  society,  and  brought 
into  the  Kingdom  of  God  men  and  women  whose  iniquity 
had  been  notorious.  He  urged  that  such  regenerated  souls 
were  living  arguments  which  could  not  be  successfully 
disputed. 

The  psychological  aspects  of  the  question  merit  a  fuller 
treatment  than  can  be  given  here.  It  seems  strange  that 
this  loss  of  self-control  should  have  first  occurred  under 
Wesley,  who  could  not,  in  the  usual  sense  of  the  term,  be 
called  an  emotional  preacher.  The  explanation  is  probably 
to  be  found  in  his  very  restraint.  While  Whitefield,  with  his 
torrential  eloquence,  and  Charles  Wesley,  by  his  impassioned 
appeal,  deeply  stirred  the  heart,  their  own  tears  and  ecstasies 
suggested  to  their  hearers  these  more  normal  avenues  for 
the  expression  of  excited  feelings.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
steady  beat  of  Wesley's  plain,  measured  discourse,  expound- 
ing hitherto  unfamiliar  doctrines  which  searched  the  con- 
sciences of  a  benighted  people  as  with  the  candle  of  the 
Lord,  was  enforced  by  a  solemnity  of  manner  and  a  peculiar 
yet  repressed  intensity  overwhelming  in  their  influence. 
Unlike  his  brother  or  Whitefield,  he  discouraged  by  his 
outward  composure  the  facile  discharge  of  agitations  which 
he  nevertheless  aroused  in  far  higher  degree  than  either 
of  them.  Hence  the  only  outlet  for  the  volcanic  emotions 
he  kindled  in  the  miners  of  Kingswood  and  Newcastle  was 
in  that  sympathetic  nervous  action  which  those  emotions 
induced.^ 

The  hostility  of  official  Anglicanism  towards  his  mission, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  showed  itself  from  the  beginning, 
was  naturally  inflamed  by  these  irregularities;  and  it 
increased  with  the  rapid  growth  of  the  movement.     There 

■  For  a  discussion  of  this  subject  see  Professor  Frederick  M.  Davenport's 
volume,  "Primitive  Traits  in  Religious  Revivals." 


302      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

was  not  suflScient  expansiveness  in  a  State  Church  governed 
by  rule  and  rote  to  admit,  much  less  assimilate,  the  extra- 
neous practices  of  the  Wesleys  and  Whitefield.  Macaulay 
speculates  that  the  Papacy  would  have  absorbed  the  enthu- 
siasm and  adopted  the  new  organization  for  the  benefit  of  the 
Holy  See.  "At  Rome  the  Countess  of  Huntingdon  would 
have  been  given  a  place  in  the  calendar  as  St.  Selina,  .  .  . 
Elizabeth  Fry  would  have  been  the  first  Superior  of  the 
Blessed  Order  of  Sisters  of  the  Jails.  John  Wesley  would 
have  become  General  of  a  new  society  devoted  to  the  honor 
and  interests  of  the  Church."  Without  by  any  means  in- 
dorsing another  oft-quoted  passage,  in  which  Cardinal  New- 
man laments  the  callous  perversity  of  the  Establishment, 
it  was  at  least  more  applicable  to  Wesley  than  to  any 
other  Anglican  since  the  Reformation :  "  Oh,  my  mother ! 
whence  is  it  unto  thee  that  thou  hast  good  things  poured 
upon  thee  and  canst  not  keep  them,  and  bearest  children 
yet  darest  not  own  them?  .  .  .  How  is  it  that  whatever 
is  generous  in  purpose  and  tender  and  deep  in  devotion, 
thy  flower  and  thy  promise  falls  from  thy  bosom  and  finds 
no  hope  within  thy  arms?"  The  Church  which  too  often 
tolerated  laxity  and  idleness  promptly  stigmatized  Wesley's 
X  effort  to  remedy  these  evils  as  a  breach  of  ecclesiastical 
discipline.  It  could  see  the  occasional  extravagances  and 
mistakes  of  Methodism,  but  was  blind  to  its  religious  value. 
Thus,  when  Wesley  solicited  the  countenance  of  Butler, 
then  Bishop  of  Bristol,  even  he,  the  bright  particular  star 
of  the  episcopacy,  replied:  "Sir,  since  you  ask  my  advice, 
I  will  give  it  freely  —  you  have  no  business  here ;  you  are 
not  commissioned  to  preach  in  this  diocese.  Therefore  I 
advise  you  to  go  hence."  Wesley  had  but  one  defense: 
he  was  a  churchman  no  less  than  his  lordship,  with  no  desire 
to  disturb  the  order  which  had  been  habitual  to  both,  yet, 
when  that  order  sought  to  check  the  influx  of  spiritual  life 
which  he  had  every  reason  to  believe  was  divinely  bestowed, 
he  was  constrained  to  take  his  own  course.     He  openly 


JOHN   WESLEY  303 

avowed :  "  God,  in  Scripture,  commands  me,  according  to 
my  power,  to  instruct  the  ignorant,  reform  the  wicked,  con- 
firm the  virtuous.  Man  forbids  me  to  do  this  in  another's 
parish ;  that  is,  in  effect  not  to  do  it  at  all,  seeing  I  have  no 
parish  of  my  own,  nor  probably  ever  shall.  Whom  then 
shall  I  hear?  God  or  man?  I  look  upon  all  the  world  as 
my  parish ;  thus  far  I  mean,  that,  in  whatever  part  of  it  I 
am,  I  judge  it  meet,  right  and  my  bounden  duty  to  declare 
unto  all  that  are  willing  to  hear,  the  glad  tidings  of  sal- 
vation." ^ 

Bishop  Gibson,  whose  interview  with  the  Wesleys  is  men- 
tioned earlier  in  this  chapter,  showed  in  his  later  references 
a  more  pronounced  antagonism  to  their  mission,  classing 
them  with  "Deists  and  Papists,"  and  condemning  their  re- 
spective errors  as  "  greatly  prejudicial  to  religion  and  danger- 
ous to  the  souls  of  men."  An  anonymous  tract  ascribed  to 
him,  and  which  at  least  received  his  approval,  vigorously 
berated  Whitefield  for  violating  Church  discipline;  the 
Wesleys  for  having  had  the  effrontery  "to  preach  in  the 
fields  and  other  open  places,  and  by  public  advertisements 
to  invite  the  rabble  to  be  their  hearers"  ;  and  the  Methodists 
in  general  for  daring  to  remain  in  the  Anglican  communion. 
Gibson  returned  to  his  arraignment,  describing  them  as 
"enemies  of  the  Church  who  give  shameful  disturbance  to 
the  parochial  clergy,  and  use  every  unwarrantable  method 
to  prejudice  their  people  against  them  and  to  seduce  their 
flocks  from  them."  Wesley  kept  silent  as  long  as  silence 
seemed  wise,  but,  notwithstanding  his  esteem  for  the  epis- 
copal oflfice  and  for  Gibson  personally,  he  now  felt  that  the 
bishop  had  exceeded  all  bounds,  and  he  published  a  chasten- 
ing rejoinder,  which,  apart  from  its  specific  aim,  deserves 
mention.  The  asseveration  that  the  bishop  was  "an  angel 
of  the  Church  of  Christ,  one  of  the  stars  in  God's  right 
hand,  calling  together  all  the  subordinate  pastors,  for  whom 
he  is  to  give  an  account  to  God,  and  directing  them  in 

1  L.  Tyerman  :   "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  235. 


304      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

the  name  of  the  great  Shepherd  of  the  sheep,  the  First 
Begotten  from  the  dead "  —  is  one  of  the  noblest  passages 
Wesley  ever  penned.  His  dignified  rebuke  was  accom- 
panied by  an  argument  which  dwelt  upon  the  breakdown 
of  the  parochial  system,  and  vindicated  Methodism  as  a 
source  of  supply  for  the  religious  needs  of  the  people.  He 
concluded  with  a  solemn  warning  which  reversed  their  posi- 
tions, leaving  the  aged  diocesan  the  accused  and  himself 
the  accuser:  "My  lord,  the  time  is  short;  I  am  past  the 
noon  of  life,  and  my  remaining  days  flee  away  as  a  shadow. 
Your  lordship  is  old  and  full  of  days.  It  cannot,  therefore, 
be  long  before  we  shall  both  drop  this  house  of  earth,  and 
stand  naked  before  God ;  no,  nor  before  we  shall  see  the 
great  white  throne  coming  down  from  heaven  and  He  that 
sitteth  thereon.  .  .  .  Will  you  then  rejoice  in  your  success  ? 
The  Lord  God  grant  it  may  not  be  said  in  that  hour, 
'These  have  perished  in  their  iniquity:  but  their  blood  I 
require  at  thy  hands.'" 

The  next  episcopal  assailant,  George  Lavington,  Bishop  of 
Exeter,  was  incomparably  inferior  to  Butler  and  also  to  Gibson. 
Following  the  usual  line  of  Englishmen  of  the  day,  who  at 
once  assigned  any  beliefs  or  actions  they  did  not  understand 
to  the  malignant  machinations  of  Rome,  he  published  in  1749 
an  anonymous  pamphlet  entitled,  "The  Enthusiasm  of 
Methodists  and  Papists  compared."  This  precious  produc- 
tion, which  was  nothing  better  than  a  continent  of  mud, 
was  issued  in  two  parts,  the  last  being  worse  than  the  first. 
His  attack  sank  to  its  lowest  depth  of  vileness  when  Laving- 
ton pretended  to  argue  that  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  with 
their  gross  physical  symbolism,  were  "a  strange  system  of 
heathen  Methodism."  Wesley  could  well  have  afforded  to 
ignore  such  scurrility;  but  the  natural  man  in  him  pre- 
vailed, and  he  met  Lavington  with  a  naked  blade,  exposing 
his  garbled  quotations,  limping  logic,  and  bad  grammar,  and 
ending  by  indignantly  challenging  him  to  come  out  from  his 
hiding  place   and  drop  his  mask.     This  unusual   burst  of 


JOHN   WESLEY  305 

righteous  indignation  did  not  prevent  him  from  having 
later  and  friendly  intercourse  with  Lavington.  They  met 
in  the  autumn  of  1762,  and  partook  of  the  Lord's  Supper 
together.  The  bishop  died  a  few  weeks  later,  and  his  epi- 
taph in  Exeter  Cathedral  eulogizes  him  as  an  overseer  "  who 
never  ceased  to  improve  his  talents  nor  to  employ  them  to 
the  noblest  purposes ;  .  .  .  a  Man,  a  Christian,  and  a  Prel- 
ate, prepared,  by  habitual  meditation,  to  resign  life  without 
regret,  to  meet  death  without  terror."  It  would  be  difficult 
to  identify  from  this  description  the  unscrupulous  contro- 
versialist whose  prevarications  and  invectives  earned  the 
contempt  of  right-minded  men.  Ten  years  after  the  Laving- 
ton episode  Warburton  reappeared,  and  led  the  van  of 
mitred  brethren  and  college  dons  against  these  detestable 
renegades  who  menaced  the  peace  of  the  community.  Origi- 
nally intended  for  the  law,  Warburton  had  drifted  into 
divinity,  carrying  with  him  those  pugnacious  tendencies 
and  arrogancies  which  were  hit  off  in  the  phrase,  "There  is 
but  one  God,  and  Warburton  is  His  Attorney-General." 
Yet,  overbearing,  reckless,  and  abusive  as  he  was,  he  did 
not  hide  under  anonymity,  and  the  vigor  and  honesty  of 
his  attacks  made  him  a  formidable  opponent.  The  last  and 
the  most  honorable  of  anti-Methodist  bishops  was  Dr. 
George  Home,  President  of  Magdalen  College,  afterwards 
appointed  to  the  see  of  Norwich.  He  entered  the  debate 
when  its  virulence  had  subsided,  and  in  any  case  his  amiable 
and  refined  disposition  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  proceed 
to  the  extremes  of  the  earlier  disputants.  While  sincerely 
believing  that  Methodism  led  to  Antinomian  practices,  he 
was  amenable  to  correction,  and  thirty  years  later,  on 
Wesley's  asking  for  the  use  of  a  church  in  Norwich,  Home 
assured  the  incumbent  that  there  was  no  reason  to  refuse 
the  request. 

So  far  nothing  had  occurred  to  separate  Methodism 
from  the  parent  Church ;  Wesley  still  regarded  his  Societies 
and  helpers  as  existing  solely  for  the  purposes  of  religious 


306      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

culture,  and  despite  the  strained  relations  they,  like  their 
founder,  were  loyal  members  of  the  Establishment.  The 
Nonconformists  had  their  own  ministry  and  ordinances, 
but  Wesley  was  careful  to  avoid  instituting  either,  or  in  any 
way  needlessly  offending  the  susceptibilities  of  the  clergy. 
He  used  different  names  for  his  organizations,  and  insisted 
that  they  should  meet  at  other  than  the  stated  times  for 
Anglican  services.  Further,  his  followers  were  urged  to 
attend  their  respective  parish  churches  and  to  communi- 
cate there.  Unfortunately,  in  many  instances  they  were 
rudely  treated,  and  given  to  understand  that  they  were  in- 
grates  and  rebels.  As  they  increased  in  numbers,  this 
deprivation  was  deeply  felt,  and  the  Wesleys  were  glad  to 
avail  themselves  of  the  offer  of  Mr.  Deleznot,  a  Huguenot 
pastor,  to  lend  them  his  sanctuary  in  Hermitage  Street, 
Wapping,  for  the  administration  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  A 
thousand  members  from  the  Foundery  partook  of  the  Eu- 
charist there ;  and  Charles  Wesley  was  forced  to  administer 
it  to  the  Kingswood  Society  in  their  school  building,  declar- 
ing, stout  cleric  though  he  was,  that,  if  no  other  place  had 
been  accessible,  he  would  have  communicated  in  the  open. 
In  the  last  decades  of  Wesley's  life  a  marked  reaction  was 
perceptible  among  the  clergy  themselves,  many  of  whom 
found  matter  for  reflection  in  the  marvelous  changes  for 
the  better  which  his  work  had  wrought.  An  attitude  of 
tolerance  found  its  way  into  their  common  habits  by  a 
process  of  pacific  penetration.  Evangelical  sentiments  be- 
gan to  leaven  the  Anglican  fold,  and  some  who  could  not 
adopt  Wesley's  methods  nevertheless  yielded  to  his  teach- 
ing. This  doubtless  contributed  to  his  prolonged  but  im- 
practicable attempt  to  maintain  the  fiction  of  union  between 
Anglicanism  and  Methodism,  in  which  there  could  be  little 
meaning  so  long  as  the  two  communions  were  dissimilar  in 
spirit  and  practice,  and  the  clergy  strove  to  unchurch  the 
converts  who,  as  they  supposed,  outraged  ecclesiastical 
procedure.     The  growing  impossibility  of  such  a  relation  at 


JOHN   WESLEY  307 

last  dawned  on  his  reluctant  mind.  He  was  not  less  percep- 
tive than  others,  though  in  this  instance  less  willing  to  admit 
the  distressing  but  palpable  fact  of  which  he  wrote  three 
years  before  his  death,  "A  kind  of  separation  has  already 
taken  place  and  will  inevitably  spread,  through  slow  de- 
grees." He  also  addressed  a  remonstrance  to  one  of  the 
bishops,  and  said,  "The  Methodists  in  general,  my  lord, 
are  members  of  the  Church  of  England.  They  hold  all  her 
doctrines,  attend  her  service,  and  partake  of  her  sacraments. 
They  do  not  willingly  do  harm  to  any  one,  but  do  what  good 
they  can  to  all.  To  encourage  each  other  herein,  they  fre- 
quently spend  an  hour  together  in  prayer  and  mutual  exhor- 
tation. Permit  me  then  to  ask,  Cui  bono?  for  what  rea- 
sonable end  would  your  lordship  drive  these  people  out  of 
the  Church?  Are  they  not  as  quiet,  as  inoffensive,  nay,  as 
pious,  as  any  of  their  neighbors  ?  Except  perhaps  here  and 
there  a  hairbrained  man,  who  knows  not  what  he  is  about. 
Do  you  ask,  'Who  drives  them  out  of  the  Church?'  Your 
lordship  does;  and  that  in  the  most  cruel  manner.  .  .  . 
They  desire  a  license  to  worship  God  after  their  own  con- 
science. Your  lordship  refuses  it ;  and  then  punishes  them 
for  not  having  a  license.  So  your  lordship  leaves  them  only 
this  alternative,  'Leave  the  Church  or  starve.'"  ^ 

Of  all  ideas  toleration,  while  so  much  less  than  equality, 
would  seem  to  be  the  very  last  in  the  general  mind.  When 
the  fervid  pioneers  of  Methodist  principles  struck  directly  at 
the  wickedness  of  their  day,  they  could  not  long  escape  the 
resentment  and  then  the  violence  of  the  mob,  incited  by 
ignorance  and  drink,  and  sometimes  by  the  clergy  or  their 
agents.  Lawless  outbreaks  occurred  in  the  Midlands,  the 
North,  Cornwall,  and  Ireland.  The  local  parsons  and  mag- 
istrates frequently  abetted  the  persecution,  and  dealt  harshly 
with  its  victims.  These  administrators  of  petty  justice 
were  infuriated  by  the  vehement  exhortations  which  burst 
upon    their    neighborhoods,    oppressed    as    they    were    by 

>  L.  Tyerman  :   "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  Ill,  p.  613. 


308      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

wrong  and  sodden  in  poverty  and  vice.  They  looked  upon 
the  evangehsts  as  enemies  of  the  peace,  or  as  Jesuits  in 
disguise.  Hate  and  calumny,  superstition  and  bigotry, 
found  vent  in  many  places,  and  nowhere  more  than  at 
Wednesbury  in  Staffordshire,  a  town  which  has  long  since 
atoned  for  its  outrageous  treatment  of  Wesley  by  its  loy- 
alty to  him  and  to  his  Church.  During  the  summer  and 
autumn  of  1743  houses  and  shops  were  plundered  and  gutted, 
their  contents  destroyed,  and  the  occupants  maltreated,  the 
members  of  the  Society  being  in  hourly  jeopardy.  Wesley 
writes,  "I  received  a  full  account  of  the  terrible  riots.  .  .  . 
I  was  not  surprised  at  all ;  neither  should  I  have  wondered 
if,  after  the  advice  they  had  so  often  received  from  the 
pulpit  as  well  as  from  the  episcopal  chair,  the  zealous  high 
churchmen  had  rose  and  cut  all  that  were  Methodists  in 
pieces."  ^  The  situation,  created  by  the  unwise  conduct  of 
the  preacher  in  charge,  aggravated  by  the  angry  protestations 
of  Mr.  Egginton,  the  local  clergyman,  and  by  the  vicious 
propensities  of  the  miners  and  iron  workers,  who  were  even 
worse  than  those  of  Kingswood  or  the  keelmen  of  Newcastle, 
compelled  a  suspension  of  Methodist  services  for  some 
weeks,  and  finally  required  the  personal  attention  of  Wesley 
himself.  He  rode  into  the  town  on  October  20,  and 
preached  at  noon  in  the  open  air.  Three  hours  later  a 
turbulent  crew  appeared  before  the  house  where  he  was 
staying,  and  demanded  that  he  should  come  forth.  After 
some  parleying,  he  accompanied  them  to  the  magistrate, 
who,  being  in  bed,  refused  to  see  them,  and  whose  son 
advised  the  ringleaders  that  they  should  release  their 
captive  and  quietly  disperse.  Instead,  they  trudged  on  to 
Walsall,  an  adjacent  town,  where  another  magistrate  also 
declined  to  interfere.  The  mob  had  scarcely  left  the 
place  before  a  second  and  more  dangerous  one  appeared, 
led  by  the  doughty  prize  fighter,  "honest  Munchin,"  and 

'"Journal    of    John    Wesley";     edited    by    Rev.    Nehemiah    Curnock; 
Vol.  Ill,  p.  79. 


JOHN  WESLEY  309 

swept  all  before  it.  Wesley  was  now  at  the  mercy  of  this 
contingent,  and  for  a  time  his  life  was  in  grave  peril. 
These  "fierce  Ephesian  beasts,"  as  his  brother  Charles 
termed  them,  cried  "Kill  him!"  and  some  even  attempted 
to  brain  him  with  their  cudgels.  But  his  tranquil  demeanor 
subdued  those  nearest  to  him,  and  the  rest  reluctantly  fell 
back  while  he  passed  through  their  midst  and  returned  to 
Wednesbury,  escorted  by  a  body  guard  recruited  from  their 
own  ranks.  The  next  morning,  as  he  rode  through  the  town, 
he  was  saluted  with  such  cordial  affection  that  he  could 
scarcely  believe  what  he  had  seen  and  heard.  Charles,  who 
met  him  at  Nottingham,  bruised,  tattered,  and  torn,  said  that 
he  looked  like  a  soldier  of  Christ  fresh  from  the  fray. 

Others  were  not  so  fortunate.  Thomas  Walsh  was  im- 
prisoned at  Brandon,  and  took  his  revenge  by  preaching 
through  the  barred  windows  of  his  cell  to  the  crowd  outside. 
Alexander  Mather's  house  was  pulled  about  his  ears  in  Wol- 
verhampton, and  at  Boston  in  Lincolnshire  he  was  left  for 
dead.  At  York,  John  Nelson  was  beaten  into  unconscious- 
ness, and  afterwards  forced  to  enlist  in  the  army.  Thomas 
Olivers  was  pursued  at  Yarmouth,  and  barely  escaped  with 
his  life.  The  list  of  these  veterans  of  the  Cross  could  be 
extended  indefinitely.  From  1742  to  1750  hardly  a  month 
elapsed  without  references  in  Wesley's  Journal  to  simi- 
lar scenes.  At  Penfield  a  baited  bull  was  let  loose  on 
the  congregation ;  and  at  Plymouth  and  Bolton  howling 
fanatics,  dancing  with  rage  such  as  had  never  been  seen 
before  in  creatures  called  men,  hunted  the  preacher  like 
a  pack  of  wolves.  There  is  nowhere  a  hint  that  any  of 
these  humble  helpers  retreated  before  such  outrages : 
indeed  they  showed  the  same  fortitude  and  courage  which 
were  characteristic  of  the  Wesleys.  Some,  like  Thomas 
Walsh,  died  while  still  young;  others  lived  to  see  the 
harvests  that,  in  the  abundance  of  their  reaping,  redeemed 
the  tears  and  blood  in  which  they  had  been  sown.  The 
meanest  peasants  rose  above  the  sorrow  and  confusion  of 


310      THREE    RELIGIOUS    LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

the  time,  and  took  a  part  in  the  molding  of  the  destinies 
of  the  nation.  Mob  leaders  became  class  leaders,  and 
directed  their  prowess  toward  spiritual  ends.  The  pugilist 
who  was  foremost  in  the  Wednesbury  riot  afterwards  joined 
the  Society  there,  and  made  a  good  confession  of  his  faith. 
The  services  of  the  growing  Church  were  conducted  by  lay 
preachers  and  itinerants  who  had  once  purposed  to  destroy 
it,  but  now  gladly  yielded  obedience  to  the  leader  whose 
genius  compacted  them  into  a  healthy  and  harmonious 
organization. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
CONSOLIDATION  AND  EXPANSION 


311 


The  epoch  ends,  the  world  is  still, 

The  age  has  talk'd  and  work'd  its  fill  — 

The  famous  orators  have  shone, 

The  famous  poets  sung  and  gone. 

The  famous  men  of  war  have  fought. 

The  famous  speculators  thought, 

The  famous  players,  sculptors,  wrought. 

The  famous  painters  fill'd  their  wall. 

The  famous  critics  judged  it  all. 

The  combatants  are  parted  now  — 

Uphung  the  spear,  unbent  the  bow, 

The  puissant  crown'd,  the  weak  laid  low. 

And  in  the  after  silence  sweet. 

Now  strifes  are  hush'd,  our  ear  doth  meet. 

Ascending  pure,  the  bell-like  fame 

Of  this  or  that  down-trodden  name, 

Delicate  spirits,  push'd  away 

In  the  hot  press  of  the  noon-day. 

And  o'er  the  plain,  where  the  dead  age 

Did  its  now  silent  warfare  wage  — 

O'er  that  wide  plain,  now  wrapt  in  gloom. 

Where  many  a  splendor  finds  its  tomb, 

Many  spent  fames  and  fallen  mights  — 

The  one  or  two  immortal  lights 

Rise  slowly  up  into  the  sky 

To  shine  there  everlastingly. 

Like  stars  over  the  bounding  hill. 

The  epoch  ends,  the  world  is  still. 

Matthew  Arnold  :  Bacchanalia;  or  the  New  Age. 


312 


CHAPTER   VIII 

CONSOLIDATION   AND    EXPANSION 

Wesley's  withdrawal  from  Fetter  Lane  —  The  Foundery  —  Contro- 
versy with  Whitefield  —  Sermon  on  Free  Grace  and  Predestina- 
tion —  Continuance  of  Calvinistic  controversy  —  Toplady  —  Thomas 
and  Rowland  Hill  ^  Wesley's  clerical  supporters  —  Fletcher  and  Grim- 
shaw  —  Lay  Preachers  —  Their  sufferings  —  Wesley's  care  for  them 
—  The  Class  Meeting  and  other  Methodist  institutions  —  First  Meth- 
odist Conference  —  Wesley's  theological  position  —  Methodism  in 
North  America  —  Philip  Embury  and  Barbara  Heck  —  Bishop  As- 
bury  —  Bishop  Coke  —  Wesley  and  Coke's  ordination  —  Deed  of 
Declaration  —  Death  of  Charles  Wesley  —  Last  Days  of  John  Wesley. 

I 

Before  Methodism  was  solidified  and  shaped  to  his  pur- 
pose, Wesley  had  to  encounter  internal  as  well  as  external 
strife.  Nor  is  this  to  be  wondered  at,  in  view  of  its  recent 
origin,  the  dissimilar  views  of  its  supporters,  and  the 
enthusiasm,  not  always  salutary,  of  its  converts.  The 
Fetter  Lane  Society,  founded  on  the  advice  of  Peter  Bohler, 
and  composed  chiefly  of  Moravians,  showed,  as  early  as  1739, 
the  inherent  differences  which  separated  German  and  Angli- 
can types  of  religious  life.  For  a  time  Wesley  calmed  the 
contentious  spirits,  but  the  exuberance  of  his  followers 
was  repugnant  to  the  passivity  of  the  Moravian  group, 
whose  leader,  Philip  Molther,  advised  the  discontinuance  of 
reading  the  Scriptures,  of  prayer,  and  of  good  works.  He 
urged  that  expectant  believers,  undisturbed  by  such  employ- 
ments, might  passively  await  the  assured  fulfillment  of  the 
promises  of  the  Gospel.  Once  established  in  this  manner, 
they  were  at  liberty  to  observe  or  neglect  the  ordinances,  as 
they  saw  fit.     Wesley  continued  to  act  as  peace-maker,  en- 

313 


314      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

deavoring  by  seasonable  means  to  correct  an  attitude  which 
would  have  killed  his  enterprise.  But  the  outcome  was 
such  as  might  have  been  expected,  and  he  and  Charles 
were  at  last  convinced  that  any  further  attempt  at  union 
between  Moravianism  and  Methodism  would  be  a  surrender 
of  the  ideals  of  both  for  the  sake  of  a  temporary  truce. 
On  July  16,  1740,  the  Society  resolved  that  John  should 
not  be  allowed  to  preach  there  again.  On  the  following 
Lord's  Day  evening  he  arose  in  his  place  and  read  a  brief 
explanation  of  his  position,  which  among  other  things  con- 
travened the  Moravian  teaching  concerning  ordinances. 
After  this  he  and  a  few  sympathizers  withdrew. 

They  repaired  to  the  Foundery,  where  their  associates 
gladly  received  them  into  a  union  which  became  the  first 
distinctive  Methodist  Society,  itself  the  unit  of  the  future 
Church.  The  outcome  of  these  internecine  troubles  was 
decidedly  helpful  to  Wesley's  efforts,  which  now  had  a  free 
course.  The  Foundery  remained  his  headquarters  until 
1778,  when  City  Road  Chapel  was  erected.  As  the  name 
indicates,  it  was  formerly  a  government  ordnance  factory 
which,  after  being  wrecked  by  an  explosion,  lay  in  ruins 
until  purchased  by  Wesley.  Here  he  established  his  depot 
for  religious  literature ;  the  edifice  was  consecrated  by  the 
presence  of  his  venerable  mother,  who  spent  her  last  days 
within  its  precincts,  and  died  there  on  July  23,  1742.  The 
building  stood  in  Windmill  Street,  near  Finsbury  Square, 
and  has  long  since  disappeared ;  the  present  Wesleyan 
Methodist  Book  Room  and  City  Road  Chapel  are  con- 
tiguous to  its  site,  and  continue  its  sacred  traditions. 

Although  his  intercourse  with  the  Moravians  was  now  at 

I  an  end,  Wesley  always  realized  his  extensive  obligation  to 

I I  such   men    as    Peter    Bohler    and    Christian    David.     The 
'separation  was  dictated  by  his  conviction  that  he  had  gone 

almost  too  far  for  safety  in  the  direction  of  their  mys- 
ticism ;  when  this  was  remedied,  he  recalled  them  with 
gratitude,  and  his    later  references    to  them  were  kindly 


JOHN   WESLEY  315 

and  respectful.  Nor  was  his  caution  unjustified  :  had  he 
not  halted  and  realigned  his  forces,  he  would  have  forfeited 
to  an  artificial  peace  the  responsibilities  and  results  of  half 
a  century's  war  upon  sin  in  all  its  forms,  secret  or  open. 
"Stand  still!"  was  their  exhortation.  "Necessity  is  laid 
upon  me;  I  must  go  forward,"  was  the  substance  of  his 
reply. 

Far  more  important  in  its  scope  and  results  was  the 
doctrinal  dispute  between  Whitefield  and  Wesley.  In 
this  case  the  dogma  of  predestination  was  the  cause  of 
dissension,^^^==^at  ■  Gordian  Xnot  which  no  theologian  nor 
philosopher  can  untie ;  the  insoluble  problem  of  Divine 
Sovereignty  and  the  freedom  of  human  will  as  bearing  on 
mortal  destiny.  We  have  observed  that  during  his  prep- 
aration for  the  ministry  Wesley  had  revolted  against  the 
extreme  interpretation  of  the  Anglican  article  which  treats 
on  the  question,  and  that  his  mother  agreed  with  him.  His 
view  was,  that  while  Omniscience  necessarily  foreknew 
men's  future  state,  that  state  was  entirely  determined  by 
their  own  act  of  personal  acceptance  or  rejection  of  the 
Gospel.  In  1740,  he  published  his  sermon  on  "Free  Grace," 
preached  in  the  previous  summer.  It  was  the  utterance  of 
one  who  saw  only  a  few  great  principles,  but  expounded 
them  with  clarity  and  earnestness.  The  Calvinistic  theory 
of  election  was  summed  up  as  follows :  "  By  virtue  of  an 
eternal,  unchangeable,  irresistible  decree  of  God,  one  part 
of  mankind  are  infallibly  saved,  and  the  rest  infallibly 
damned ;  it  being  impossible  that  any  of  the  former  should 
be  damned,  or  that  any  of  the  latter  should  be  saved.  To 
say  that  Christ  does  not  intend  to  save  all  sinners  is  to 
represent  Him  as  a  gross  deceiver  of  the  people,  as  mocking 
His  hapless  creatures,  as  pretending  the  love  which  He  had 
not.  He  in  whose  mouth  was  no  guile,  you  make  full  of 
deceit,  void  of  common  sincerity.  Such  blasphemy  as  this 
one  would  think  might  make  the  ear  of  a  Christian  to  tingle. 
So  does  this  doctrine  represent  the  most  holy  God  as  worse 


316      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

than  the  devil,  as  both  more  false,  more  cruel,  and  more 
unjust." 

Miss  Wedgwood  speaks  of  the  "  provoking  glibness  "  of  the 
discourse,  and  of  Wesley's  incapacity  for  perceiving  diffi- 
culties "which  is  the  characteristic  of  an  early  stage  of 
culture."  He  certainly  did  not  meet  the  argument  that, 
if  the  design  of  Christ  is  to  save  all  and  the  result  is 
He  only  saves  some,  His  work  is  to  that  extent  a  failure. 
Nor  can  the  horrors  of  the  lost  be  extenuated  by  relieving 
the  Almighty  of  responsibility  for  their  doom.  Man's  free 
will  is  a  transparent  mockery  if,  too  weak  to  stand  alone,  he 
is  placed  amidst  temptations  which  inevitably  seduce  the 
masses  of  mankind  and  consign  them  to  eternal  reprobation. 
Neither  reason  nor  revelation,  wisely  interpreted,  entirely 
supports  the  eschatology  of  the  Arminian  or  that  of  the 
Calvinist.  They  do  not  warrant  the  notion  of  eternity  as  a 
perpetual  prolongation  of  time :  it  is  rather  one  of  the 
attributes  of  Him  Who  is  incomprehensible,  and  theologians 
invade  His  Being  when  they  thus  attempt  to  measure  or 
announce  His  judgments.  Out  of  this  invasion  have  arisen 
certain  repulsive  conceptions  of  the  penalties  of  perdition 
for  which  there  is  often  but  a  slight  basis  of  truth.  Yet 
Wesley's  chastisement  of  Calvinism  was  an  effective  effort 
to  modify  the  awful  dogma  which  left  nothing  to  human 
choice,  and  to  soften  the  pitilessness  of  a  theology  which 
protected  its  logic  at  the  expense  of  every  instinct  of  justice. 
Notwithstanding  Peter  Bohler's  crude  assertion  that  "all 
the  damned  souls  would  hereafter  be  brought  out  of  hell," 
for  "how  can  all  be  universally  redeemed  if  all  are  not 
finally  saved,"  Wesley  heartily  accepted  the  orthodox 
teachings  concerning  human  depravity  and  everlasting 
punishment  for  wilful  transgression  of  the  divine  law  and 
conscious  rejection  of  the  divine  mercy.  He  knew  nothing 
of  the  modern  temper,  deeply  felt  by  Protestantism,  which 
assigns  rights  to  man  as  well  as  to  Deity,  conceiving  of  all 
divine-human  relations  from  an  ethical  rather  than  from 


JOHN   WESLEY  317 

an  arbitrary  standpoint.  One  of  the  postulates  of  contem- 
porary theology  is  that  punishment  must  be  remedial  if  it 
is  to  be  just,  and  must  terminate  if  it  is  not  to  be  futile.  Nor 
does  he  seem  to  have  considered  the  impermanence  of  evil, 
as  St.  John  reveals  it :  a  more  or  less  mundane  phenom- 
enon which  passes  away,  in  contrast  to  the  essential  reality 
of  good,  which  alone  abides.  He  did  not  hesitate  to  pro- 
claim the  terrors  of  the  Law,  although  they  were  not  the 
staple  of  his  preaching.  And  it  must  be  remembered  that 
a  more  balanced  opinion  would  have  been  of  little  avail  for 
the  majority  of  his  audiences,  to  whom  moderation  on  such 
an  issue  might  have  appeared  as  a  decision  for,  rather  than 
against,  their  open  wickedness.  It  is  a  hard  saying  but  a 
true  one,  and  not  without  support  in  a  more  enlightened 
age,  that  many  individuals  are  only  moved  by  three  or  four 
circumscribed  fears  :  those  of  hunger ;  of  force ;  of  law ;  or 
of  the  dread  hereafter.  And  many  who  heard  Wesley's 
denunciations  with  guilty  and  trembling  hearts  frequently 
proved  that  if  the  fear  of  God  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom, 
the  love  of  God  is  its  end. 

Whitefield,  on  the  other  hand,  had  always  leaned  towards 
the  doctrinal  position  originally  derived  from  Genevan 
sources.  Hard  and  consistent  thinking  was  alien  to  his 
nature,  and  his  expositions  of  Calvinism,  the  most  consistent 
of  systems,  were  fragmentary  and  disjointed.  He  was  con- 
tent in  this  matter  to  submit  to  one  of  the  greatest  minds 
that  ever  combined  power  in  thought  with  equal  power 
in  speech  and  action.  Jonathan  Edwards,  the  foremost 
intellect  America  can  boast,  was  primarily  a  philosopher 
rather  than  a  theologian,  whose  excessive  speculations  marred 
his  religious  thinking,  and  who  used  them  to  bring  into  pain- 
ful prominence  those  severe  dogmas  of  the  Puritan  the- 
ocracy, the  reaction  against  which  was  found  in  earlier 
Unitarianism  and  later  in  the  transcendentalism  of  Emerson. 
Under  different  circumstances  this  recluse  of  New  England 
and  Princeton  might  have  developed  a  metaphysical  system 


318      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

comparable  for  its  intellectual  influence  with  that  of  Hume 
or  Kant ;  as  it  was,  he  derived  his  chief  inspiration  from  a 
nearly  obsolete  theology  which,  but  for  the  impetus  he 
supplied  its  flagging  energies,  would  probably  not  have 
known  the  renaissance  it  enjoyed.  A  survey  of  his  narrower 
range  shows  how  steadfastly  credal  formulae  persist,  even 
after  reason  and  truth  seem  to  have  uprooted  them.  Yet, 
if  prophets  have  a  right  to  be  unreasonable,  Edwards  was 
thus  privileged,  for  he  grasped  the  essentials  on  which 
real  morality  depends,  though,  while  expanding  the  doctrine 
of  the  absolute  Sovereignty  of  God  on  lines  necessary 
to  that  end,  he  carefully  refrained  from  dealing  likewise  with 
others  not  so  necessary  to  his  main  purpose.  Even  in  such 
superior  natures  as  his  the  windows  of  the  mind  are  all  too 
limited  for  an  ample  prospect  of  things  pertaining  to  other 
worlds  than  this.  And  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  what- 
ever else  he  did  or  left  undone  Edwards  knew  how  to  awaken 
the  best  feelings  and  impulses  of  men,  to  stimulate  their 
faith,  and  to  kindle  and  keep  alive  the  religious  zeal  of  the 
commonwealth.  His  writings  are  full  of  spiritual  subtleties 
and  great  verities,  tinged  with  the  melancholy  of  a  lofty 
spirit  who  was  much  misunderstood. 

Whitefield's  admirers  were  frequently  more  fervent  than 
helpful,  and  their  unqualified  homage  gave  him  no  hint  of  any 
of  his  defects.  Sir  James  Stephen  speaks  of  him  as  "leaping 
over  a  state  of  pupilage"  to  become  "at  once  a  teacher  and 
a  dogmatist."  His  convictions  upon  Calvinistic  doctrines 
must  have  been  strong,  or  he  would  not  for  a  moment  have 
sacrificed  for  them  his  friendship  with  Wesley.  But  election 
and  reprobation  as  expressed  by  him  were  not  the  scandalous 
Theism  which  their  worst  forms  presented.  Their  presence 
can  rather  be  detected  under  such  sweet  and  exultant  phrases 
as  the  "sovereign,"  "electing,"  "distinguishing"  love  of  the 
Eternal  Father,  whose  "irresistible  call"  had  brought  him 
out  of  darkness  into  the  light  of  "the  chosen";  "a  mere 
earthen  vessel,"  meriting  naught  but  wrath,  but  filled  with 


JOHN  WESLEY  319 

undeserved  mercies.  This  was  the  language  of  the  impas- 
sioned orator,  who  felt  the  presence  of  his  audience,  but  did 
not  comprehend  the  basic  phases  of  Calvinistic  teaching. 

In  New  England  these  prevailed  for  a  period  sufficiently- 
extended  to  reveal  their  lamentable  consequences.  Chiefly 
because  of  the  sheer  fatalism  which  separated  the  elect 
from  the  non-elect,  the  clergy  opposed  the  religious  educa- 
tion of  the  young,  and  proscribed  missionary  activities.  In 
the  Northern  States  slavery  was  regarded  as  a  regrettable 
necessity;  below  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  it  was  accepted 
as  a  Scriptural  provision,  by  which  Whitefield,  among  numer- 
ous other  clergymen,  felt  free  to  profit.  The  mechanical 
and  lifeless  rationalism  of  this  theory,  as  held  by  disciples 
who  had  neither  Edwards'  genius  nor  his  devotion,  created 
endless  disputings,  and  drove  many  people  into  sects  of  /  / 
religious  liberalism.  Some  of  these  supplanted  the  im- 
possible  and  irresponsible  egoism  which  had  hitherto  been 
postulated  as  the  determinant  of  Divine  action,  with  the 
ideal  of  God  as  the  Universal  Father,  and  of  all  men  as 
essentially  and  permanently  related  to  Him.  Others,  in 
their  rebound  from  a  relentless  system,  went  much  further, 
and  formed  that  rationalizing  caste  which  has  been  an 
influential  factor  in  American  Unitarianism.  Such,  then, 
were  the  beliefs  which  Whitefield  proposed  to  incorporate 
into  Methodism,  and  had  Wesley  not  anticipated  the  pro- 
tests of  Bushnell  and  Beecher,  the  evolution  of  evangelical 
Christianity  might  have  followed  very  different  lines. 

Writing  from  London  on  June  25,  1739,  to  Wesley  at 
Bristol,  Whitefield  refers  with  alarm  to  his  colleague's 
intention  to  print  a  sermon  on  predestination.  "It  shocks 
me  to  think  of  it ;  what  will  be  the  consequences  but  con- 
troversy? If  people  ask  me  my  opinion,  what  shall  I  do? 
I  have  a  critical  part  to  act,  God  enable  me  to  behave  aright  I 
Silence  on  both  sides  will  be  best.  It  is  noised  abroad  al- 
ready, that  there  is  a  division  between  you  and  me ;  oh,  my 
heart  within  me  is  grieved ! "     When  a  copy  of  Wesley's 


320   THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

sermon  on  "Free  Grace"  was  sent  to  Whitefield  at  Savannah, 
he  entered  into  a  lengthy  correspondence  with  the  author, 
which,  at  first  affectionate  enough,  grew  less  conciliatory 
as  it  proceeded.  He  prepared  a  formal  answer  to  the 
sermon  "in  the  spirit  of  candid  friendship  "  ;  but  the  friend- 
ship was  not  so  obvious  as  the  candor.  Charles  Wesley,  to 
whom  he  submitted  it  before  publication,  advised  its  with- 
drawal. Nevertheless  it  was  published,  and  Whitefield 
notified  John  that  hereafter  he  was  resolved  to  preach  against 
him  and  his  brother  wherever  he  went.  Wesley  remonstrated 
with  him  on  the  unwisdom  of  such  a  course,  and  criticized 
the  pamphlet  for  its  random  rhetoric  and  flippancy.  In 
March,  1741,  he  wrote:  "Mr.  Whitefield,  being  returned  to 
England,  entirely  separated  from  Mr.  Wesley  and  his  friends, 
because  they  did  not  hold  the  decrees.  Here  was  the  first 
breach,  which  warm  men  persuaded  Mr.  Whitefield  to  make 
merely  for  a  difference  of  opinion.  Those  who  believed 
universal  redemption  had  no  desire  to  separate ;  but  those 
who  held  particular  redemption  would  not  hear  of  any 
accommodation,  being  determined  to  have  no  fellowship 
with  men  that  were  in  such  dangerous  errors.  So  there  were 
now  two  sorts  of  Methodists :  those  for  particular  and  those 
for  general  redemption."  ^  Happily,  however,  personal 
rancor  subsided ;  Howel  Harris  interposed  to  reconcile 
them,  and  Whitefield  made  a  handsome  apology  for  the 
allusions  in  his  pamphlet  to  Wesley's  habit  of  casting  lots. 
On  April  23,  1742,  they  spent  "an  agreeable  hour"  to- 
gether, concerning  which  Wesley  made  the  self-complacent 
comment,  "I  believe  he  is  sincere  in  all  he  says  concerning 
his  earnest  desire  of  joining  hand  in  hand  with  all  that  love 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  But  if  (as  some  would  persuade  me) 
he  is  not,  the  loss  is  all  on  his  own  side.  I  am  just  as  I  am. 
I  go  on  my  way,  whether  he  goes  with  me  or  stays  behind."  ^ 

»  "Wesley's  Works"  ;   Vol.  VIII,  p.  335. 

*  "Journal  of  Rev.  John  Wesley"  ;   edited  by  Rev.  Nehemiah  Curnock; 
Vol.  Ill,  p.  4. 


JOHN   WESLEY  321 

A  less  dubious  note  was  struck  toward  the  close  of  1755, 
when  Wesley  declared :  "  Disputings  are  now  no  more ; 
we  love  one  another,  and  join  hand  in  hand  to  promote  the 
cause  of  our  common  Master."  ^ 

But  the  ties  which  prevented  an  irreparable  breach  be- 
tween them  did  not  bind  their  followers,  and  after  White- 
field's  death  the  controversy  broke  out  again  in  uproar- 
ious fashion.  The  London  Conference  in  1770  sent  forth 
a  counterblast  against  Antinomianism,  which  rebuked  this 
deduction  from  Calvinism  for  its  ethical  rather  than  for 
its  theological  errors.  Lady  Huntingdon,  with  some  of  the 
ministers  who  inherited  the  work  and  opinions  of  White- 
field,  took  umbrage  at  this,  the  more  so  because  Methodism 
was  drifting  away  from  the  Anglican  Church.  Her  desire 
that  it  should  remain  within  the  Establishment,  and  her 
impatience  with  Wesley's  Arminianism,  assumed  such  violent 
forms  that  she  vowed  she  would  go  to  the  flames  in  pro- 
test against  the  "infamous  Minutes"  of  the  Conference. 
Whatever  may  have  been  her  ladyship's  cravings  for  martyr- 
dom, she  was  apparently  more  willing  to  inflict  punishment 
on  others  than  suffer  it  herself.  Neither  she  nor  her  partisans 
had  arrived  at  the  state  of  intellectual  freedom  in  which, 
while  holding  to  one's  own  conclusions,  it  is  possible  to  believe 
that  others  who  think  differently  may  be  right,  or,  at  any 
rate,  equally  honest.  Accordingly,  she  summarily  dismissed 
the  learned  and  able  Joseph  Benson  from  his  tutorship  at 
Trevecca  College,  and  even  the  saintly  Fletcher  was  so 
harassed  that  he  could  not  remain  there.  Wesley's  magis- 
terial expostulations  with  the  Countess  had  no  effect :  she 
was  just  as  accustomed  as  he  was  to  having  her  own  way, 
and  "Pope  John"  and  "Pope  Joan"  joined  issue.  The 
Honorable  and  Reverend  Walter  Shirley  entered  the  lists 
in  aid  of  his  titled  relative,  and  sent  out  a  circular  letter 
declaiming   against   the   action   of  the   Conference.     Their 

*  "Journal  of  Rev.  John  Wesley"  ;    edited  by  Rev.  Nehemiah  Curnock; 
Vol.  IV,  p.  140. 
y 


322      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

attack  ended  in  a  fiasco,  the  Countess  suffered  the  unusual 
experience  of  a  decided  reverse,  and  Shirley  felt  obliged 
to  apologize  for  his  unseemly  language. 

His  strictures  evoked  the  defense  of  Arminianism  by 
John  Fletcher  and  Thomas  Olivers,  while  Augustus  Top- 
lady,  Sir  Thomas  Hill,  and  his  better  known  brother  Rowland 
became  their  antagonists.  The  honors  of  the  acrimonious 
discussion  were  with  Fletcher,  whose  "Checks  to  Antino- 
mianism"  were  more  admirable  for  their  Christian  temper 
than  for  their  philosophical  grasp  of  the  diflBcult  problems 
about  which  others  wrangled  while  he  at  least  reasoned. 
Toplady's  contributions  are  best  passed  over  in  charitable 
silence,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  he  was  the  author  of  one  of 
the  noblest  hymns  in  the  language.  The  then  youthful 
Rowland  Hill's  talent  was  perverted  to  abusive  epithets  and 
studied  insolence :  Wesley,  according  to  this  son  of  a  land- 
owning Shropshire  family,  was  "the  lying  apostle  of  the 
Foundery";  "  a  designing  wolf  "  ;  "  a  dealer  in  stolen  wares  " ; 
"as  unprincipled  as  a  rook  and  as  silly  as  a  jackdaw,"  "  first 
pilfering  his  neighbors'  plumage,  and  then  going  forth  dis- 
playing his  borrowed  tail  to  the  eyes  of  a  laughing  world." 
Such  ramping  recalled  Lavington's  escapade,  and,  like  it, 
had  no  bearing  on  the  question.  Wesley  replied  to  Hill 
in  his  pamphlet  entitled,  "Some  Remarks  on  Mr.  Hill's 
Review  of  all  the  Doctrines  taught  by  Mr.  John  Wesley," 
in  which  he  also  "drew  the  sword  and  threw  away  the 
scabbard."  "I  now  look  back,"  said  he,  "on  a  train  of 
incidents  that  have  occurred  for  many  months  last  past, 
and  adore  a  wise  and  gracious  Providence,  ordering  all 
things  well!  When  the  circular  letter  was  first  dispersed 
throughout  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  I  did  not  conceive 
the  immense  good  which  God  was  about  to  bring  out  of  that 
evil.  But  no  sooner  did  Mr.  Fletcher's  first  Letters  appear 
than  the  scene  began  to  open ;  and  the  design  of  Providence 
opened  more  and  more,  when  Mr.  Shirley's  Narrative  and 
Mr.  Hill's  Letters,  constrained  him  to  write  his  Second  and 


JOHN   WESLEY  323 

Third  Checks  to  Antinomianism.  It  was  then  indisputably 
clear,  that  neither  my  brother  nor  I  had  borne  a  sufficient 
testimony  to  the  truth.  ...  I  will  no  more  desire  any  Ar- 
minian,  so  called,  to  remain  only  on  the  defensive.  Rather, 
chase  the  fiend,  reprobation,  to  his  own  hell,  and  every  doc- 
trine connected  with  it.  Let  none  pity  or  spare  one  limb  of 
either  speculative  or  practical  Antinomianism,  or  of  any  doc- 
trine that  naturally  tends  thereto ;  only  remembering  that, 
however  we  are  treated  by  men,  who  have  a  dispensation 
from  the  vulgar  rules  of  justice  and  mercy,  we  are  not  to  fight 
them  at  their  own  weapons,  to  return  railing  for  railing. 
Those  who  plead  the  cause  of  the  God  of  love  are  to  imitate 
Him  they  serve;  and,  however  provoked,  to  use  no  other 
weapons  than  those  of  truth  and  love,  of  Scripture  and 
reason." ^ 

This  outspoken  document  scarcely  exemplified  the  charity 
it  advised,  but  it  eliminated  Calvinism  from  Methodist 
theology.  After  the  purification  and  the  later  secession  of 
some  fanatical  advocates  of  perfectionism,  Wesley  found 
himself  at  the  head  of  a  homogeneous  and  aggressive  body, 
delivered  from  doctrinal  uncertainty,  and  animated  by 
unshaken  confidence  in  its  mission. 


II 

While  his  independence  of  the  world  helped  him  to 
know  it  as  no  worldling  can,  and  to  guard  his  infant  cause 
against  its  foes,  he  was  not  without  the  steadfast  sympathy 
and  friendship  of  a  group  of  Anglican  clergymen,  some  of 
whom  stood  by  him  to  the  last.  The  first  of  these  was  Vincent 
Perronet,  Vicar  of  Shoreham,  Kent,  a  man  of  whom  it  may 
be  said,  in  Jowett's  phrase,  that  for  him  things  sacred  and 
profane  lay  near  together  but  yet  were  never  confused.  Al- 
though seldom  in  the  public  eye,  he  counseled  the  coun- 
selors, and  few  things  of  importance  were  undertaken  by 

»  L.  Tyerman :   "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  Ill,  p.  144. 


324      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

the  Wesleys  without  his  approval.  Another  was  William 
Grimshaw,  vicar  of  Haworth,  a  moorland  town  in  the  heart 
of  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire,  since  associated  with  the 
famous  daughters  of  his  successor,  the  Reverend  Patrick 
Bronte.  Grimshaw  was  an  eccentric  but  frank,  fearless, 
and  companionable  man,  large  in  nature  as  in  stature,  and  a 
warm  advocate  of  Methodism  so  long  as  it  remained  within 
the  Established  Church.  Another  was  John  Berridge,  of 
Everton,  in  the  Midlands,  a  useful  and  widely  known  col- 
league, whom  Wesley  loved  to  visit.  But  the  extravagant 
conduct  of  Berridge  and  the  prostrations  and  ravings  of 
his  converts  were  excesses  Wesley  found  it  difficult  to 
explain. 

The  ripest,  most  apt  and  perfect  saint  of  Anglican  Meth- 
odism was  Fletcher  of  Madeley,  a  naturalized  Swiss  of 
patrician  descent,  whose  holiness  of  character  impressed  even 
Voltaire,  and  is  still  an  inspiration  and  a  power.  His  memory 
is  encircled  by  an  ethereal  luster  which  has  given  him  a  unique 
place  in  the  annals  of  his  own  Church  and  in  those  of  Meth- 
odism. Many  devout  men  and  women  of  all  persuasions 
have  derived  their  best  ideals  and  conceptions  of  evangel- 
ical Christianity  from  his  personal  example.  Disregarding 
his  parent's  intention  that  he  should  enter  the  ministry, 
Fletcher,  like  many  of  his  countrymen,  sought  employment 
as  a  soldier  of  fortune,  and  being  frustrated  in  this  attempt, 
repaired  to  England,  where  he  secured  a  position  as  tutor 
in  the  family  of  Mr.  Thomas  Hill  of  Tern  Hall,  Shropshire.^ 
While  residing  with  his  patron  in  London,  he  became  an 
earnest  Christian,  and  at  once  showed  that  capacity  for  the 
religious  life  in  which  he  has  had  few  equals.  An  ardent 
love  for  New  Testament  truth  and  inward  purity  possessed 
him.  He  was  set  apart  to  the  pastorate  in  his  twenty- 
eighth  year,  and  during  the  first  months  after  his  ordination 
ministered  at  Atcham  Church,  an  ancient  structure  of 
Norman    foundation,   standing   near   one   of   the   loveliest 

1  Now  called  Attingham  Hall  and  the  seat  of  the  Berwicks. 


JOHN   WESLEY  325 

windings  of  the  Severn  River.  In  this  rural  paradise,  sur- 
rounded by  a  landscape  full  of  unmarketable  beauties  of 
glade  and  hedgerow,  where,  beyond  the  skirting  woods  of 
Attingham  and  Haughmond,  the  spires  of  Shrewsbury  pierce 
the  horizon  and  the  gray  walls  of  the  former  Cistercian  Abbey 
of  Buildwas  are  seen  in  the  adjacent  valley,  Fletcher  entered 
upon  the  work  of  his  life.  Two  livings  were  offered  him,  one 
of  comparative  ease,  the  other,  at  Madeley,  an  industrial 
parish  seven  miles  distant,  small  in  stipend  and  overflowing 
with  vice  and  iniquity.  He  chose  the  latter,  and  there  began 
that  ministry  which  could  not  be  confined  to  any  locality. 
At  first  wantonly  opposed,  at  last  tenderly  loved,  in  a  then 
obscure  village  Fletcher  led  a  life  crowded  with  these  alter- 
nations, but  crowned  in  the  sequel  by  the  unbounded  rev- 
erence of  his  parishioners  and  many  others  who  held  him 
well-nigh  infallible  in  the  higher  matters  that  pertain  to 
the  spirit.  His  unadorned  story,  like  that  of  St.  Francis, 
whom  he  resembled  in  sanctity,  is  as  fascinating  as  any 
romance  of  medieval  religion. 

His  frail  body  could  not  adequately  sustain  the  intensity 
of  his  meek  but  unquenchable  soul,  and  when,  at  length,  it 
gave  way,  he  spent  his  last  Lord's  Day  in  the  sanctuary  at 
the  altar  of  the  Holy  Communion,  and  was  carried  thence 
to  his  death-bed  amid  the  blessings  of  his  people.  His 
wife,  Mary  Bosanquet  Fletcher,  survived  him  many  years, 
and  was  herself  counted  among  the  saints  of  Methodism. 
Wesley,  who  had  chosen  Fletcher  as  his  successor,  mourned 
his  decease,  and  testified  of  him :  "  Many  exemplary  men 
have  I  known,  holy  in  heart  and  life,  within  fourscore  years ; 
but  one  equal  to  him  I  have  not  known,  one  so  inwardly 
and  outwardly  devoted  to  God.  So  unblamable  a  character, 
in  every  respect,  I  have  not  found  either  in  Europe  or 
America ;  and  I  scarce  expect  to  find  such  another  on  this 
side  of  eternity."  ^ 

Other    assistance    came,     however,    and    Wesley    soon 

*  L.  Tyerman :   "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  Ill,  p.  464. 


326      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

obtained  an  active  corps  of  workers.  In  the  first  days 
of  the  movement,  preaching  was  confined  to  ministers 
of  episcopal  ordination,  but  its  spread  in  wider  areas 
where  the  Anglican  pastors  were  unfriendly  led  to  develop- 
ments which  eventually  separated  Methodism  from  the  older 
Church,  On  occasions  when  no  such  clergyman  was  pres- 
ent to  address  the  congregations,  lay  helpers  had  ventured 
to  do  so.  Of  these  were  Joseph  Humphreys,  John  Cennick, 
and  Thomas  Maxfield.  As  early  as  1738,  Humphreys  had 
assisted  Wesley  at  Fetter  Lane,  and  after  1740  the  other 
two  were  identified  with  the  more  distinct  Methodism  at 
the  Foundery.  By  the  end  of  that  year  the  Wesleys  were 
isolated :  Whitefield  was  in  America ;  Gambold  and  Brig- 
ham  had  joined  the  Moravians;  and  Anglicans •  generally 
had  washed  their  hands  of  the  enterprise.  Under  these 
circumstances  the  forerunners  of  the  itinerant  preachers 
appeared.  Cennick  was  a  man  of  some  culture,  the  Master 
of  Kingswood  School,  who  celebrated  his  conversion  in 
several  well-known  hymns,  among  which  are  those  beginning 

"Children  of  the  Heavenly  King" 
and 

"Thou  dear  Redeemer,  dying  Lamb." 

Requested  to  reprove  him  for  expounding  the  Scriptures 
to  a  congregation  disappointed  of  its  minister,  on  the  con- 
trary Wesley  so  encouraged  him  that  he  gave  his  spare 
time  to  preaching  and  exposition  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Bristol.  Yet  when  Wesley  received  word  there  that  Thomas 
Maxfield  had  also  "turned  preacher,"  and  in  the  London 
Society  at  that,  he  was  greatly  disquieted.  One  surmises 
that  his  dismay  was  due  to  the  relative  importance  of  the 
Foundery  and  to  the  difference  between  Cennick  and  Max- 
field, rather  than  to  Maxfield's  presumption.  A  man  of 
unstable  disposition,  the  latter  had  been  converted  under 
Wesley's  preaching  at  Bristol  on  May  20,  1739,  and  became 
the  servant  and  companion  of  his  brother  Charles.     John 


JOHN   WESLEY  327 

now  hurried  to  London,  determined  to  silence  him,  but 
there  he  received  an  unexpected  caution  from  his  mother : 
"You  know  what  my  sentiments  have  been,"  said  Mrs. 
Wesley.  "You  cannot  suspect  me  of  favoring  anything  of 
this  kind,  but  take  care  what  you  do  with  respect  to  that 
young  man,  for  he  is  as  surely  called  to  preach  as  you  are." 
He  yielded  to  her  advice  to  hear  Maxfield  for  himself,  and, 
after  doing  so,  the  matter  ended  with  his  hearty  sanction. 
Within  a  year  there  were  twenty  recognized  lay  preachers 
in  the  various  Societies,  an  innovation  which  again  annoyed 
the  clergy  of  the  Establishment.  "I  know  your  brother 
well,"  remarked  Dr.  Robinson,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  to 
Charles  Wesley.  "I  could  never  credit  all  I  heard  respect- 
ing him  and  you;  but  one  thing  in  your  conduct  I  could 
never  account  for  —  your  employing  laymen."  "My  lord," 
rejoined  Charles,  "the  fault  is  yours  and  your  brethren's." 
"  How  so  ?  "  asked  the  Archbishop.  "  Because  you  hold  your 
peace,  and  the  stones  cry  out,"  answered  Charles.  "But 
I  am  told,"  urged  his  Grace,  "that  they  are  unlearned  men." 
"Some  are,"  said  Charles,  adding  with  a  flash,  "and  so  the 
dmnb  ass  rebukes  the  prophet,"  whereupon  the  Archbishop 
asked  no  further  questions.'^ 

The  truth  that  laws  and  institutions  are  not  made,  but 
grow  out  of  necessity,  was  illustrated  by  this  emergence 
from  the  neglected  people  of  their  spiritual  guides  and 
teachers.  Those  who  were  chosen  for  such  offices  carried 
the  Gospel  into  places  where  Wesley,  ubiquitous  as  he 
was,  could  never  have  penetrated.  Their  advent  into 
his  evangelizing  scheme  delivered  it  from  the  contingencies 
which  might  have  arisen  at  his  death;  the  work  ceased  to 
hang  on  the  thread  of  a  single  existence,  and  the  confident 
prophecies  of  its  opponents  that  the  movement  would  soon 
perish  were  doomed  to  remain  unfulfilled.  Within  twelve 
years  eighty-five  helpers  had  already  entered  the  service,  of 
whom  six  had  died,  ten  had  retired,  one  had  been  expelled, 

»  L.  Tyerman :   "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;  Vol.  I,  p.  277. 


328      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

and  sixty-eight  were  in  active  employment.  At  the  Leeds 
Conference  in  1755  rules  regulating  their  conduct  were  for- 
mulated and  published  by  Wesley.  They  were  expected 
to  be  always  earnestly  alive  to  their  duty,  patterns  of  self- 
denial;  to  drink  only  water,  to  rise  at  four,  to  fast 
on  Fridays,  to  visit  from  house  to  house,  to  insist  on  a 
definite  religious  experience  in  the  members,  and  to  make 
a  quarterly  report  of  their  labors.  No  one  else  could 
have  required  such  self-effacement  with  any  hope  of 
obtaining  it  from  men  characteristically  independent. 
He  did  not  make  these  demands,  however,  in  the  spirit  of 
mere  supremacy,  but  because  he  was  satisfied  that  they 
were  absolutely  essential  to  the  welfare  of  his  workers  and 
the  success  of  their  work.  On  their  part,  the  preachers  were 
content  to  submit  to  ordinances  which  the  ruler  himself 
was  the  first  to  obey.  When  he  was  criticized  for  investing 
himself  with  arbitrary  power,  he  answered  artlessly,  "  If  by 
arbitrary  power  you  mean  a  power  which  I  exercise  singly, 
without  any  colleagues  therein,  this  is  certainly  true,  but  I 
see  no  hurt  in  it."  There  was  little,  because  his  love  for 
these  obscure  laborers  was  that  of  a  father  for  his  children, 
and  theirs  for  him  was  blended  with  a  reverent  awe.  Once 
his  prejudices  were  overcome,  none  rejoiced  in  their  presence 
and  progress  more  than  did  Wesley.  He  knew  them  in- 
timately, read  their  respective  traits  with  a  discerning  eye, 
watched  over  their  temporal  and  spiritual  wants,  was  patient 
with  their  misunderstandings,  mourned  over  their  defections, 
which  were  few,  and  covered  the  pages  of  his  Journal  with 
accounts  of  their  struggles  and  triumphs.  The  hardships  of 
their  lot  were  such  as  even  he  had  not  known,  save  for  a 
brief  period.  They  were  subjected  to  inhuman  treatment  long 
after  their  leader,  by  general  consent,  had  obtained  exemp- 
tion from  the  penalties  the  world  is  wont  to  inflict  on 
prophets  of  the  truth.  Relentlessly  pursued  by  their  enemies, 
denounced,  ridiculed,  caricatured,  threatened,  maltreated; 
penniless  and  a-hungered,  sometimes  sick  unto  death;   and 


JOHN   WESLEY  329 

all  for  no  other  reason  than  their  exercise  of  the  liberty 
to  testify  concerning  the  Gospel ;  yet  as  a  rule  they 
were  found  faithful  to  the  end.  A  word  of  praise  from 
Wesley's  lips  was  as  eagerly  prized  as  is  the  cross  for  valor 
by  the  soldier  on  the  battle-field.  The  testimony  of  a  con- 
science void  of  offense  and  the  bliss  of  a  regenerated  life 
were  at  once  the  secret  of  their  heroical  character  and  the 
burden  of  their  message. 

Doubtless  there  were  violations  of  good  taste,  prudence, 
and  sobriety  of  judgment,  but,  when  the  origin,  training  and 
environment  of  the  first  itinerants  are  considered,  these 
mistakes  appear  relatively  slight.  It  is  apparent  that  they 
not  only  met  a  national  religious  emergency,  but  that  on 
the  whole  they  were  the  best  equipped  men  to  meet  it.  The 
gulf  which  separated  the  lettered  cleric  from  the  artisan 
and  the  peasant  was  unknown  to  them.  After  the  manner 
of  those  of  the  New  Testament  these  democratic  disciples 
consorted  with  the  multitude,  and  captured  many  strong- 
holds of  sin  which  had  withstood  the  parochial  clergy. 
They  introduced  to  homes  ravaged  by  vice  and  crime  the 
thrift  and  industry,  the  domestic  piety  and  rectitude  of 
conduct  which  form  the  hearth  where  the  soul  of  a  country 
is  nurtured  and  protected.  Wesley's  estimate  of  them  was 
judicious :  "  In  the  one  thing  which  they  profess  to  know 
they  are  not  ignorant  men.  I  trust  there  is  not  one  of  them 
who  is  not  able  to  go  through  such  an  examination  in  sub- 
stantial, practical,  experimental  divinity  as  few  of  our  can- 
didates for  holy  orders  even  in  the  University  (I  speak  it 
with  sorrow  and  shame  and  in  tender  love),  are  able  to  do." 
He  had  his  full  share  of  the  scholar's  hate  of  ignorance ;  none 
knew  better  the  advantages  of  an  educated  ministry,  and  he 
was  at  great  pains  in  aiding  his  helpers  to  gain  knowledge. 
"Your  talent  in  preaching  does  not  increase,"  he  wrote  to 
one  of  these.  "It  is  lively,  but  not  deep.  There  is  little 
variety;  there  is  no  compass  of  thought.  Reading  only 
can  supply  this,  with  daily  meditation  and  daily  prayer. 


330      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

.  .  .  Whether  you  Hke  it  or  not,  read  and  pray  daily. 
It  is  for  your  Hfe !  There  is  no  other  way ;  else  you  will 
be  a  trifler  all  your  days  and  a  pretty,  superficial  preacher. 
Do  justice  to  your  own  soul ;  give  it  time  and  means  to  grow ; 
do  not  starve  yourself  any  longer."  He  lectured  to  them 
on  "Pearson  on  the  Creed,"  "Aldrich's  Logic,"  and  similar 
works;  discussed  their  difficulties,  instructed  them  in  the 
art  of  correct  thinking  and  speaking,  and  arranged  the  course 
of  their  studies.  His  "Notes  on  the  New  Testament," 
taken  from  Bengel,  and  the  "Rules  for  Action  and  Utter- 
ance" were  written  primarily  for  them,  and  his  "Christian 
Library,"  an  abridgment  of  some  fifty  well-known  works, 
while  meant  for  a  larger  public,  was  also  intended  for  his 
helpers.  Whatever  came  from  his  pen  was  eagerly  read  by 
them  in  order  that  they  might  become  a  more  efficient 
fighting  unit  under  his  generalship.  The  time  was  not 
ripe  for  constitutional  Methodism :  indeed  a  division  of 
its  government  at  this  stage  would  have  been  equiva- 
lent to  placing  an  army  confronting  the  enemy  under  a 
committee  of  half-trained  officers.  It  was  necessarj^  that  the 
preachers  should  cultivate  a  talent  for  administration  before 
they  could  safely  be  intrusted  with  its  powers.  This  was  a 
wise  policy,  preserving  the  integrity  of  the  movement  from  the 
undesirable  elements  which  a  few  zealots  were  eager  to  intro- 
duce. Although  an  autocrat,  Wesley  was  generally  careful 
to  ascertain  as  far  as  possible  the  wishes  of  his  preachers. 
No  Protestant  clergyman  ever  exercised  a  more  fascinating 
influence  over  his  brethren.  The  charm  was  personal, 
whether  diffused  through  his  conversation,  his  correspon- 
dence, or  his  kindly  acts.  His  preachers,  old  and  young, 
were  free  to  offer  suggestions,  which  he  readily  adopted 
if  they  commended  themselves  to  his  judgment;  and 
Henry  Moore,  who  took  advantage  of  this  privilege  more 
frequently  than  did  his  brethren,  was  relished  for  his 
freedom  of  speech.  When  a  younger  minister's  frank 
expression    of   opinion    provoked   the    blunt    and   militant 


JOHN   WESLEY  331 

Thomas  Rankin  to  chide  him  for  impertinence,  Wesley  at 
once  interposed  in  his  defense,  and  added,  "I  will  thank 
the  youngest  man  among  you  to  tell  me  of  any  fault  you  see 
in  me ;  in  so  doing,  I  shall  consider  him  my  best  friend." 
This  was  his  usual  bearing  in  a  singular  position  not  easily 
understood  in  this  day  of  distributed  ecclesiastical  authority. 
While  he  lived,  his  absolutism  was  tempered  and  adjusted 
by  his  paternal  conduct ;  after  he  died,  not  even  the  Confer- 
ence, in  its  collective  wisdom,  could  exercise  it  as  he  had 
done  without  encountering  resistance  and  material  loss. 

The  fact  that  one  great  soul  made  his  ideas  and  convic- 
tions the  sources  of  spiritual  vitality  for  generations  of  men 
and  women  is  impressive.  Wesley's  Christian  nature,  en- 
dowed with  an  intellectual  energy  unrivaled  in  its  attrac- 
tion for  the  plain  folk,  made  him  the  figure  of  his  century 
which  brightens  on  the  historic  canvas  while  other  figures 
fade.  The  bishops  and  statesmen  whom  he  could  not  per- 
suade nor  prompt,  who  would  not  hearken  to  his  counsel  and 
despised  his  reproof,  wax  dimmer  and  dimmer,  while  he  looms 
larger  and  more  influential.  But  this  would  have  been 
impossible  had  he  not  extended  his  work  through  the  helpers 
whom  he  brought  to  the  rescue  of  a  degraded  populace  and 
controlled  and  directed  with  singular  firmness  united  with 
equally  remarkable  tact.  Thus  it  was  not  only  his  renovated 
forms  of  theological  faith  or  his  unique  individuality  coin- 
ciding with  opportunity  or  necessity,  but  the  fertility  of 
his  organizing  genius  and,  most  of  all,  the  devotion  of  his 
preachers,  that  accounted  for  the  spread  of  Methodism. 

Some  of  his  subordinates  were  designated  "half  itinerants," 
such  as  John  Haime,  William  Shent,  William  Roberts, 
Charles  Perronet,  John  Furz,  Jonathan  Jones,  Jonathan 
Maskew,  James  Roquet,  John  Fisher,  Matthew  Lowes, 
John  Brown,  and  Enoch  Williams ;  others,  "  chief  local 
preachers,"  such  as  Joseph  Jones,  Thomas  Maxfield,  Thomas 
Westall,  Francis  Walker,  Joseph  Tucker,  William  Tucker, 
James  Morris,  Eleazer  Webster,  John  Bakewell,  Alexander 


332      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

Mather,  Thomas  Colbeck,  Titus  Knight,  John  Slocomb, 
and  Michael  Calender.  Southey,  in  reviewing  these  lists, 
describes  the  appearance  of  John  Haime,  the  soldier  evange- 
list, dwelling  on  his  mean  and  common  features,  his  small, 
inexpressive  eyes,  scanty  eyebrows  and  short,  broad,  vulgar 
nose,  "in  a  face  of  ordinary  proportions  which  seemed  to 
mark  out  a  subject  who  would  have  been  content  to  travel 
a  jog-trot  along  the  high-road  of  mortality,  and  have  looked 
for  no  greater  delight  than  that  of  smoking  and  boozing  in 
the  chimney  corner.  And  yet,"  adds  Southey,  "John  Haime 
passed  his  whole  life  in  a  continued  spiritual  ague."  ^  True, 
Haime  had  his  disordered  humors,  and  he  was  troubled 
about  many  things.  But  his  case  showed  that  when  religion 
reaches  and  uplifts  the  low^est  in  the  human  scale  illimitable 
are  the  hopes  it  inspires  of  what  humanity  may  be  permitted 
to  attain.  On  May  11,  1745,  he  stood  in  the  stricken  ranks 
at  Fontenoy  and  was  among  the  last  to  retreat.  When 
the  army  camped  in  Flanders,  Haime,  although  he  had 
never  seen  Wesley,  preached  his  doctrines  to  his  comrades, 
and  led  them  to  the  Cross.  They  went  into  action 
singing  Methodist  hymns,  and  died  on  the  field  praising 
God  for  His  salvation.  John  Downes,  who  left  sixpence 
as  his  total  fortune,  and  was  forced  to  relinquish  preaching 
because  of  ill-health,  was  a  mathematician  and  a  mechanical 
expert,  and  best  of  all,  a  godly  and  an  honorable  man. 
Thomas  Walsh,  one  of  the  Irish  converts  of  1749,  in  some 
respects  the  foremost  member  of  the  pioneer  band,  was  dis- 
tinguished not  only  for  his  fervid  piety,  but  also  for  his  learn- 
ing. Wesley  regarded  him  as  the  best  Biblical  scholar  he 
had  ever  known.  His  proficiency  in  Hebrew  and  Greek 
was  such  that  he  read  these  languages  as  easily  as  he  did  his 
native  Erse,  and  could  tell  how  often  and  where  a  given  word 
occurred  in  the  original  Scriptures.  "The  life  of  Thomas 
Walsh,"  said  Southey,  "might  almost  convince  even  a 
Catholic  that  saints  are  to  be  found  in  other  communions 

>  "Life  of  Wesley"  ;   pp.  292-298. 


JOHN   WESLEY  333 

as  well  as  in  the  Church  of  Rome.  .  .  .  His  soul  seemed 
absorbed  in  God;  and  from  the  serenity  and  something 
resembling  splendour  which  appeared  on  his  countenance 
and  in  all  his  gestures  afterwards,  it  might  easily  be  dis- 
covered what  he  had  been  about."  ^  He  was  widely  accepted 
among  his  own  people,  to  whom  he  became  an  ambassador 
of  Christ  Jesus  for  nine  years  before  he  died  at  the  early  age 
of  twenty-eight. 

Among  the  six  preachers  admitted  at  the  Limerick  Con- 
ference of  August,  1752,  the  first  held  in  Ireland,  was  Philip 
Guier,  Master  of  the  German  school  at  Ballingran.  Of  the 
seven  thousand  Germans  who  in  1709  had  been  driven  by 
persecution  from  the  Palatinate  of  the  Rhine  to  England, 
three  thousand  were  sent  to  America,  and  the  majority  of 
the  remainder  settled  in  or  around  Limerick,  where  Guier 
taught  Embury  his  letters  and  instructed  Thomas  Walsh 
in  the  faith.  The  leader  of  Methodism  at  Limerick  until 
his  death  in  1778,  Guier  tended  the  little  flock  so  assiduously 
that  a  hundred  years  later  his  name  was  still  a  hailing  sign 
of  the  people  for  the  itinerants.  John  Jane  certainly  earned 
a  place  in  the  roll  of  self-sacrificing  devotees.  Unable  to 
purchase  a  horse,  he  undertook  his  journeys  on  foot,  and 
Wesley  once  met  him  at  Holyhead  without  food  or  means, 
but  in  capital  spirits  after  a  long  tramp  from  Bristol,  during 
which  he  had  spent  seven  nights  on  the  road  and  managed 
to  exist  with  only  three  shillings  to  his  account.  Weakened 
by  privations  and  exposures,  he  died  a  few  months  later, 
sixteen  pence  and  his  clothes  being  his  total  estate  — 
"enough,"  said  Wesley,  "for  any  unmarried  preacher  of  the 
Gospel  to  leave  his  executors."  The  list  of  these  worthies 
could  be  enlarged  indefinitely,  and  even  so  late  as  the  early 
Victorian  period,  the  Primitive  Methodist  exhorters  and 
preachers  were  subjected  to  similar  hardships. 

Southey's  criticism  that  as  a  rule  Wesley's  men  "possessed 
no  other  qualifications  than  a  good  stock  of  animal  spirits 

»  "Life  of  Wesley"  ;   pp.  381-388. 


334      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

and  a  ready  flow  of  words,  a  talent  which  of  all  others  is 
least  connected  with  sound  intellect,"  would  make  them  the 
merest  accident  in  a  tremendous  moral  conflict  of  which  they 
were  actually  the  center.  On  the  contrary,  their  preaching 
served  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  tongue  is  eloquent  in 
its  own  language  and  the  heart  in  its  own  religion.  That 
religion  was  sheltered  in  their  deepest  consciousness,  and 
for  it  they  wrought  and  suffered  greatly,  finding  in  its  ideals 
the  true  life  of  the  spirit  and  an  inspiration  to  disinterested 
action. 

Ill 

Wesley's  success  as  an  organizer  was  further  due  to  his 
resourcefulness  in  adopting  or  modifying  methods  and  plans 
already  existing  as  well  as  those  he  formulated  himself. 
Neither  the  name  nor  the  idea  of  the  Societies  originated 
with  him,  and  he  refers  to  his  own  use  of  them  as  follows : 
"The  first  rise  of  Methodism  was  in  November,  1729,  when 
four  of  us  met  together  at  Oxford ;  the  second  was  at 
Savannah  in  April,  1736,  when  twenty  or  thirty  persons 
met  at  my  house ;  the  last  was  at  London,  when  forty  or 
fifty  of  us  agreed  to  meet  together  every  Wednesday  evening, 
in  order  to  free  conversation,  begun  and  ended  with  singing 
and  prayer."  ^  The  Society  in  Aldersgate  Street,  where 
he  was  converted,  was  held  under  Anglican  auspices  pre- 
viously to  Molther's  appearance,  and  so  was  that  at  Fetter 
Lane.  Three  years  after  the  exodus  to  the  Foundery, 
distinctively  Methodist  organizations  had  spread  from 
London  to  Bristol,  Kingswood,  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  and 
were  soon  multiplied  throughout  the  kingdom.  A  book  of 
rules  for  their  guidance,  which  was  issued  at  Newcastle  in 
1743,  and  signed  by  the  Wesley s,  contained  their  definition 
of  a  Society  as  "a  company  of  men  having  the  form  and 
seeking  the  power  of  godliness,   united  in  order  to  pray 

1  Ecclesiastical  History,  IV,  p.  175,  quoted  by  Canon  J.  H.  Overton : 
"John  Wesley"  ;  p.  121. 


JOHN   WESLEY  335 

together,  to  receive  the  word  of  exhortation,  and  to  watch 
over  one  another  in  love,  that  they  may  help  each  other 
to  work  out  their  own  salvation."  They  naturally  de- 
sired fellowship,  and  in  providing  for  it  Wesley  reverted 
to  the  practice  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  where  he  found 
the  authorization  of  those  measures  without  which  his 
congregations  would  have  been  impaired  if  not  destroyed. 
The  institution  most  typical  of  Methodism  was  the  class 
meeting,  which  began  at  Bristol  in  1742.  In  order  to 
raise  funds  for  the  extinction  of  the  debt  upon  the  Horse 
Fair  Chapel,  one  Captain  Fry  proposed  that  every  mem- 
ber should  give  a  penny  a  week.  The  objection  was 
made  that  some  were  too  poor  to  afford  this  modest  sum, 
whereupon  Fry  volunteered  to  underwrite  the  contri- 
butions of  eleven  such  members,  and  suggested  that 
others  should  do  likewise.  His  advice  was  taken,  the  entire 
Society  was  divided  into  groups  of  twelve,  the  responsible 
member  being  called  the  leader,  and  the  rest  his  class.  In 
this  way  originated  the  fiscal  system  which  has  since  been 
employed  for  the  support  of  the  ministry,  and  also  that 
communion  of  saints  which  has  had  no  superior. 

The  watch  night  service,  which  was  akin  to  the  vigiloB 
of  the  early  Church,  was  at  first  held  monthly,  but  later,  on 
New  Year's  eve  only.  The  quarterly  meeting  arose  out  of 
the  necessity  for  pastoral  supervision  of  the  Societies  and  class 
meetings,  and  gradually  became  the  local  church  court  for 
the  circuits  assigned  to  the  preachers,  who  also  gave  tickets 
to  the  members  in  good  standing.  The  band  meetings 
and  love  feasts  were  intended  to  cultivate  in  their  at- 
tendants a  grateful  sense  of  God's  mercies,  and  self- 
examination  concerning  their  state,  sins,  and  temptations. 
The  penitents'  meeting  is  sufficiently  described  by  its 
name,  the  hymns  and  exhortations  being  such  as  were 
suitable  for  mourners  who  had  lost  their  assurance  of  for- 
giveness. It  is  evident  that  these  means  for  religious  growth 
were   more   nearly   a   reproduction   of   those   of   the   New 


336      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

Testament  than  many  others  then  extant,  and  that  nothing 
had  been  done  as  yet  to  contravene  the  ideals  of  Angli- 
canism concerning  the  priesthood  of  the  clergy.  On  this 
issue  even  Wesley  contended  that  the  priest  was  a  repre- 
sentative character,  with  derivative  functions,  and  traces  of 
his  conception  have  appeared  in  some  of  his  ministerial 
followers.  We  return  to  the  class  meeting  because  it  was 
the  soul  of  the  peculiar  fraternity  and  social  worship  which 
have  been  the  cohesive  bonds  of  Wesleyanism.  Within  its 
hallowed  circle  the  sinful  were  warned  to  "flee  from  the  wrath 
to  come,"  the  careless  were  reproved,  the  backsliders  re- 
covered, the  faint-hearted  encouraged,  and  the  presump- 
tuous restrained.  As  the  fundamental  part  of  a  polity 
which  was  dictated  by  necessity  rather  than  expediency, 
it  directed  spiritual  energies,  and  conserved  the  divine 
life  out  of  which  these  arose.  It  gave  Wesley  and  his 
members  an  inviolable  retreat  for  their  souls'  safety;  it 
freed  them  for  the  most  aggressive  evangelism  England 
and  America  have  known ;  it  coordinated  in  one  Christian 
democracy  colliets,  laborers,  artisans,  ironworkers,  mer- 
chants and  scholars,  and  fused  them  into  a  brotherhood 
whose  main  objects  were  to  live  soberly  and  righteously, 
and  grow  daily  in  the  knowledge  and  love  of  their  Re- 
deemer. It  also  produced  an  extensive  hagiology,  in  which 
for  the  first  time  the  miner  and  the  plowman  had  their 
proportionate  numbers  and  distinction.  The  majority 
of  its  adherents  came  from  a  harassing  environment 
to  the  cherished  spot  where  they  learned  to  endure 
as  seeing  Him  Who  is  invisible.  "It  can  scarce  be 
conceived,"  wrote  Wesley,  "what  advantages  have  been 
reaped  from  this  prudential  regulation.  Many  now 
experience  that  Christian  fellowship  of  which  they  had 
not  so  much  as  an  idea  before."  The  leaders  essayed  the 
difficult  task  of  spiritual  culture,  and  despite  many  draw- 
backs discharged  its  duties  with  courage,  fidelity,  and  wisdom. 
Such  an  intercourse  could  not  fail  to  be  mutually  helpful 


JOHN   WESLEY  337 

and  enriching.  It  was  at  once  the  outer  court  and  the  inner 
sanctuary  of  that  temple  of  living  souls  which  arose  before 
the  unbelieving  gaze  of  bigoted  clerics  and  cynical  secular- 
ists, and  while  it  was  held  dear  the  missionary  spirit  of 
Methodism  remained  invincible. 

The  first  Conference  convened  at  the  Foundery  on  Monday, 
June  25,  1744,  and  remained  in  session  for  five  days.  It 
consisted  of  ten  members :  the  two  Wesleys,  John  Hodges, 
Rector  of  Wenvo,  Henry  Piers,  Vicar  of  Bexley,  Samuel 
Taylor,  Vicar  of  Quinton,  John  Meriton,  an  incumbent  in 
the  Isle  of  Man,  and  four  lay  preachers,  Thomas  Richards, 
Thomas  Maxfield,  John  Bennett,  and  John  Downes.  Al- 
though of  these  last  named  only  Downes  remained  with 
Wesley  to  the  end,  they  were  the  representatives  of  the  lay 
preachers  who  in  Britain  now  occupy  ten  out  of  every 
twelve  of  the  pulpits  of  Methodism.  Small  in  numbers  as 
the  Conference  was,  this  did  not  prevent  it  from  devising 
a  large  program.  On  the  Lord's  Day  previous  to  the  open- 
ing session  the  Holy  Communion  was  administered  to  the 
London  Society  of  over  two  thousand  members.  Charles 
Wesley  delivered  the  ofiicial  sermon,  which  was  followed 
by  a  series  of  discussions  on  doctrine  and  order,  when  it 
was  resolved  to  maintain  Anglican  standards  both  by 
preaching  and  example.  The  new  disciples  were  urged  to 
build  one  another  up  in  faith  and  diligence  in  order  that 
Scriptural  holiness  might  be  spread  throughout  the  land. 
The  itinerants  were  minutely  directed  as  to  their  general 
conduct,  and  exhorted  to  remember  that  "a  preacher  is  to 
mind  every  point,  great  or  small,  in  the  Methodist  discipline. 
Therefore  you  will  need  all  the  grace  and  sense  you  have, 
and  to  have  all  your  wits  about  you." 

These  ten  men,  the  majority  of  whom  were  Anglican 
clergymen,  created  the  annual  Conference,  over  forty-seven 
sessions  of  which  Wesley  himself  presided,  and  which  has 
met  for  one  hundred  and  seventy-two  successive  years. 
The  Conferences  of  American  and  Australian  Methodism, 


338      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

both  annual  and  quadrennial,  were  afterwards  modeled 
upon  it.  As  organizations  they  have  spread  a  network  of 
jurisdiction  throughout  the  English-speaking  world  and 
over  missionary  lands,  becoming  the  high  courts  of  legisla- 
tion and  executive  control,  and  conveying  the  spirit  and 
doctrines  of  their  Founder  to  every  quarter  of  the  globe. 

The  apparent  innovation  of  Wesley's  teachings  was  largely 
due  to  the  fact  that  what  is  seen  or  heard  for  the  first  time, 
however  ancient,  appears  novel.  He  did  little  more  than 
expound  the  principles  of  Christianity  contained  in  the 
Articles  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  interpreted  by 
Moravianism.  This  led  him  to  the  regenerated  life  which 
is  supreme  over  ecclesiasticism  and  dogmatism.  From 
Moravianism  he  also  derived  some  major  conceptions  of 
how  that  life  was  received  and  propagated.  In  its  ex- 
ample he  saw  the  possibility  of  forming  vital  groups  within 
the  Church  rather  than  of  founding  an  independent  com- 
munion, and  enacted  his  measures  accordingly.  He  deemed 
the  position  of  the  Scriptures  impregnable,  and  wrote  of 
them  in  the  Preface  to  his  Sermons.  "Let  me  be  homo 
unius  libri.  Here  then  I  am,  far  from  the  busy  ways  of  men. 
I  sit  down  alone  :  only  God  is  here.  In  his  presence  I  read 
His  book ;  for  this  end,  to  find  the  way  to  heaven.  Is  there 
a  doubt  concerning  the  meaning  of  what  I  read?  I  lift  up 
my  heart  to  the  Father  of  lights,  and  ask  him  to  let  me  know 
His  will.  I  then  search  after  and  consider  parallel  passages 
of  Scripture.  I  meditate  thereon  with  all  the  attention  and 
earnestness  of  which  my  mind  is  capable.  If  any  doubt 
still  remains,  I  consult  those  who  are  experienced  in  the  things 
of  God;  and  then  the  writings  whereby,  being  dead,  they 
yet  speak.     And  what  I  thus  learn,  that  I  teach."  ^ 

His  language  shows  that  few  men  have  been  less 
hampered  in  their  religious  energies  by  the  critical  in- 
tellectual atmosphere.  While  he  never  regarded  regularity 
in  minor  theological  issues  as  of  supreme  importance,  he 

1  L.  Tyerman:   "Life  and  Timea  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  532. 


JOHN  WESLEY  339 

always  Insisted  upon  the  necessity  of  repentance,  regenera- 
tion, and  justification  by  faith.  These,  though  separable 
in  thought,  were  quite  inseparable  in  fact.  "The  moment 
we  are  justified  by  the  grace  of  God  through  the  redemption 
that  is  in  Jesus,  we  are  also  born  of  the  Spirit.  .  .  .  Jus- 
tification implies  only  a  relative,  the  new  birth,  a  real  change. 
God  in  justifying  us  does  something  for  us;  in  begetting 
us  again  He  does  the  work  in  us.  By  justification,  instead 
of  enemies  we  become  children ;  by  sanctification,  instead 
of  sinners  we  become  saints.  The  first  restores  us  to  the 
favour,  the  other  to  the  image  of  God." 

His  view  of  regeneration  was  inconsistent.  In  his 
"Treatise  on  Baptism,"  published  in  1756,  he  states  that 
"By  baptism,  we,  who  were  'by  nature  children  of  wrath,' 
are  made  the  children  of  God.  And  this  regeneration,  which 
our  Church,  in  so  many  places,  ascribes  to  Baptism,  is  more 
than  barely  being  admitted  into  the  Church,  though  com- 
monly connected  therewith  :  being  '  grafted  into  the  body  of 
Christ's  Church,  we  are  made  the  children  of  God  by  adop- 
tion and  grace.'"  Again  in  his  sermon  on  the  New  Birth 
he  says,  "  It  is  certain  our  Church  supposes  that  all  who  are 
baptized  in  their  infancy  are,  at  the  same  time,  born  again ; 
and  it  is  allowed  that  the  whole  OflBce  for  the  Baptism  of 
Infants  proceeds  upon  this  supposition.  Nor  is  it  an  objec- 
tion of  any  weight  against  this  that  we  cannot  comprehend 
how  this  work  can  be  wrought  in  infants.  For  neither  can 
we  comprehend  how  it  is  wrought  in  a  person  of  riper  years."  ^ 
This  was  sound  Anglicanism,  but  when  Wesley  faced  the 
truth  that  regenerated  infants  developed  into  unmistakable 
sinners,  he  promptly  abandoned  it.  Becoming  impatient 
with  the  futility  of  arguing  back  to  any  presumptive  change 
in  infancy,  he  exclaimed,  "How  entirely  idle  are  the  com- 
mon disputes  on  this  head!  I  tell  a  sinner,  'You  must 
be  born  again !'  'No,'  say  you,  'he  was  born  again  in  bap- 
tism;    therefore   he   cannot   be   born   again.'     Alas,    what 

» L.  Tyerman:  "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  II,  pp.  264-2G5. 


340      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

trifling  is  this !  What  if  he  was  then  a  child  of  God  ?  He 
is  now  manifestly  a  child  of  the  devil.  Therefore  do  not  play 
upon  words.  He  must  go  through  an  entire  change  of 
heart.  .  .  .  Remember  that  if  either  he  or  you  die  without 
it,  your  baptism  will  be  so  far  from  profiting  you  that  it 
will  greatly  increase  your  damnation."  Here,  as  was  his 
custom,  Wesley  concerned  himself  with  the  facts  of  the 
case  and  left  the  theories  to  take  care  of  themselves.  The 
two  standards  are  hard  to  reconcile,  nor  did  he  attempt  their 
reconciliation;  he  preferred  to  dwell  on  the  transformation 
which  God  effects  in  the  soul  when  He  raises  it  from  the 
death  of  sin  to  the  life  of  righteousness,  recreating  it  in 
Christ  Jesus,  and  renewing  it  in  His  own  likeness.  At 
that  moment  the  affections  were  transferred  from  things  tem- 
poral to  things  eternal ;  pride  became  humility,  and  passion 
meekness ;  hatred,  envy,  and  malice  were  supplanted  by  a 
sincere,  tender,  disinterested  love  for  all  mankind.  He 
did  not  insist  upon  the  instantaneousness  of  this  revolution, 
although  he  had  been  told  by  Bohler  that  it  occurred  at  a 
given  moment.  "I  contend,  not  for  circumstance,  but  for 
the  substance,"  he  observed.  "So  you  can  attain  it  another 
way,  do;   only  see  that  you  do  attain  it." 

His  sermon  on  "The  Duty  of  Constant  Communion," 
published  in  1788,  shows  that  he  looked  upon  the  Eucharist 
as  the  food  of  souls,giving  strengtTT  for  the  performance 
of  duty,  and  leading  its  recipients  toward  perfection^  He 
held  both  Sacraments  in  such  reverence  that  he  persist- 
ently refused  to  allow  either  of  them  to  be  administered  by 
any  except  episcopally  ordained  clergymen.  Nevertheless  he 
was  not  a  Sacramentarian  in  the  sense  that  permits  out- 
ward and  visible  signs  to  displace  an  inward  and  renewing 
grace;  a  grace,  as  he  avowed,  received  by  faith,  not  by 
material  media,  and  which  depends  upon  the  witness  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  and  the  assurance  of  the  believer's  heart,  rather 
than  upon  conformity  in  communicating.  Again,  this  assur- 
ance differed  from  the  tenet  of  final  perseverance ;  it  could  be 


JOHN   WESLEY  341 

forfeited  by  lack  of  faith  or  lapse  of  conduct ;  it  was  active 
only  in  those  who  continued  steadfast  in  well-doing,  and 
who  brought  forth  the  fruits  of  righteousness  in  their  daily 
lives.  It  was  also  diametrically  opposed  to  the  governing 
concept  of  sacerdotalism,  Anglican  as  well  as  Roman,  which 
repudiates  the  idea  of  the  believer's  certainty  of  forgiveness, 
save  on  priestly  authority.  In  the  medieval  Church  the 
mystics  alone  professed  this  independent  certitude;  Wyc- 
liffe  rejected  it  absolutely ;  Calvin  found  no  suflBcient  place 
for  it  in  his  deterministic  scheme;  Luther,  though  it  was 
contained  in  his  teaching  on  salvation  by  faith,  receded  from 
it  in  proportion  as  he  narrowed  the  meaning  of  faith  to 
intellectual  acceptance  of  dogma.  The  Church  of  England 
was  committed,  by  the  implication  of  her  Homilies,  if  not 
by  their  specific  declarations,  to  the  doctrine  of  assurance; 
but  this  had  been  completely  overlooked,  and  Wesley's 
teaching  was  invested,  even  in  the  minds  of  her  leading 
instructors,  with  a  dangerous  if  not  heretical  tendency,  "  an- 
other illustration,"  as  Dr.  Workman  remarks,  "of  the 
familiar  truth  that  the  working  creeds  of  a  Church  are  by 
no  means  the  full  contents  of  its  official  symbols." 

The    doctrine ^of    Christian    perfection    was    the    crown 

of  Wesley's  teaching,  and  the  corollary  of  his  appeal  to 
experience.  A  genuine  consciousness  of  sonship  in  the  be- 
liever implies  the  possibility  that  such  consciousness  may 
become  complete,  and  this  as  a  present  possibility,  else 
the  experience  would  not  be  in  consciousness.  Its  inward 
truth  has  been  common,  as  an  experience  rather  than  as 
a  doctrine,  to  saints  of  all  ages.  It  has  been  misinter- 
preted through  regarding  time  as  an  actuality  rather  than 
as  a  quality  of  consciousness,  the  latter  being  Wesley's 
understanding  of  it.  Those  who  would  dismiss  it  either 
as  an  egoistical  delusion  or  an  iridescent  dream,  which, 
like  that  of  St.  Francis,  cannot  overcome  contact  with  the 
earth,  may  perhaps  be  induced  to  turn  to  it  again  by  the 
observation  of  Professor  Huxley,  that  perfectibility  is  the 


342      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

one  rational  goal  of  progressive  existence.  This  suggests 
the  further  reflection  that  the  life  everlasting  would  seem 
to  demand  the  final  unity  of  all  being  in  the  likeness  and 
will  of  God.  Wesley  derived  his  ideal  from  those  Scriptural 
passages  which  enjoin  unreserved  surrender  to  Christ  Jesus, 
and  a  heart  overflowing  with  love  toward  God  and  man.  He 
not  only  expounded  these  graces  without  faltering,  but  also 
verified  the  type  of  Christian  life  they  produced  by  an 
open  discussion  of  its  results.  Wherever  they  were  prac- 
ticed he  noted  a  quickening  among  his  people,  and  this 
caused  him  to  preach  perfection  more  constantly,  as  of  the 
utmost  importance  for  the  growth  of  believers.  Writing  to 
Adam  Clarke  in  November,  1790,  he  says,  "To  retain  the 
grace  of  God,  is  much  more  than  to  gain  it ;  hardly  one  in 
three  does  this.  And  this  should  be  strongly  and  explicitly 
urged  upon  all  who  have  tasted  of  perfect  love.  If  we  can 
prove  that  any  of  our  local  preachers  or  leaders,  either 
directly  or  indirectly,  speak  against  it,  let  him  be  a  local 
preacher  or  leader  no  longer  ,  .  .  how  impossible  it  is  to 
retain  pure  love  without  growing  therein."  ^  To  Robert 
Brackenbury  he  wrote  in  the  same  year,  "This  doctrine  is 
the  grand  depositum  which  God  has  lodged  with  the  people 
called  Methodists;  and,  for  the  sake  of  propagating  this 
chiefly,  He  appeared  to  have  raised  them  up."  ^  He 
commented  on  the  Society  at  Otley  in  Yorkshire :  "  Here 
began  that  glorious  work  of  sanctification  which  now  from 
time  to  time  spread  through  most  parts  of  England  and  all 
the  south  and  west  of  Ireland.  And  wherever  the  work  of 
sanctification  increased,  the  whole  work  of  God  increased 
in  all  its  branches."  He  had  visited  the  Otley  Methodists 
and  examined  them  one  by  one.  Some  of  them  he  doubted, 
but  of  the  majority  he  wrote,  "Unless  they  told  wilful  and 
deliberate  lies,  it  was  plain  :  (1)  That  they  felt  no  inward  sin, 
and,  to  the  best  of  their  knowledge,  committed  no  outward 

»  L.  Tyerman:   "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  Ill,  p.  633. 
» Ibid.,  p.  625. 


JOHN   WESLEY  343 

sin.     (2)  That  they  saw  and  loved  God  every  moment,  and      ■ 
prayed,  rejoiced,  and  gave  thanks  evermore.     (3)   That  they       ; 
had  constantly  as  clear  a  witness  from  God  of  sanctifica-      ' 
tion  as  they  had  of  justification.     In  this,"  he  added,  "I  do 
rejoice  and  will  rejoice.  ...     I  would  to  God,  thousands  had 
experienced  thus  much;    let   them    afterwards    experience 
as  much  more  as  God  pleases."  ^ 

In  his  "Plain  Account  of  Christian  Perfection"  he  dwelt 
upon  it  at  length,  but  despite  his  avowals  many  devout 
Methodists  have  held  that  while  these  higher  levels 
are  divinely  authorized,  they  are  not  always  humanly 
possible.  Nor  was  Wesley  under  any  delusion  concerning 
the  measure  of  his  own  sanctification.  He  never  claimed 
for  himself  that  the  goal  was  won :  on  the  contrary,  it 
was  ever  before  him,  and  his  language  was  that  of  antici- 
pation rather  than  acquirement.  He  scrupulously  avoided 
the  phrase,  "sinless  perfection,"  yet  the  term  perfection 
was  itself  susceptible  of  abuse,  both  from  the  indifferent 
and  from  those  whose  zeal  outran  their  knowledge.  Stand- 
ing midway  between  these  extremists  was  a  group  of  men 
and  women  who  satisfied  his  highest  hopes.  Cardinal 
Newman's  test  of  the  claim  of  a  Church  to  be  in  the 
apostolic  succession  by  its  ability  to  produce  saints  was 
not  only  met  by  John  Fletcher  and  Thomas  Walsh,  to 
whose  splendor  and  serenity  the  world  could  offer  no  bribe, 
but  also  by  such  children  of  Methodism  as  Hannah  Ball, 
Nancy  Bolton,  Hester  Rogers,  Martha  Thompson,  William 
Bramwell,  Roger  Crane,  Ezekiel  Cooper,  Thomas  Taylor, 
David  Stoner,  William  Carvosso,  Thomas  Collins,  Benja- 
min M.  Adams,  Bishop  Marvin,  William  Owen  of  Old 
Park,  and  numberless  others  —  elect  souls  who  verified  the 
reality  of  Christ's  word,  "I  am  come  that  they  might  have 
life,  and  that  they  might  have  it  more  abundantly." 

The  contrast  furnished  by  the  unseemly  ebullitions  of  a 
cult  of  perfectionists  in  the  London  Society  grieved  Wesley, 

>  L.  Tyerman:    "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley";   Vol.  II,  p.  417. 


344      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

and  alarmed  the  more  sedate  brethren.  Thomas  Maxfield, 
among  other  heady  emotionalists,  began  by  professing  entire 
sanctification,  and  ended  in  hysterical  delusions.  Upon 
being  rebuked  by  the  preachers,  he  displayed  a  temper 
anything  but  holy,  and  Fletcher,  anxious  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  genuine  spirituality,  wrote  to  Wesley :  "  Many 
of  our  brethren  are  overshooting  sober  Christianity  in 
London.  .  .  .  The  corruption  of  the  best  things  is  always 
the  most  corrupt."  When  Wesley  returned  there,  in 
October,  1762,  he  found  the  Society  rent  in  twain,  and 
Maxfield  and  his  sympathizers  inclined  to  further  mischief. 
They  had  withdrawn  from  fellowship,  and  one  of  them,  George 
Bell,  a  former  soldier  and  a  noisy  fellow  whose  obsessions 
were  incurable,  became  a  full-blown  prophet  of  the  Millennial 
Advent,  which  he  solemnly  announced  would  take  place  on 
February  28,  1763.  God  had  done  with  preaching  and 
ordinances,  and  His  presence  was  now  strictly  limited  to 
the  assemblies  of  the  Bellites.  These  lurid  apocalypses 
led  astray  the  unwary,  and  Wesley's  patience  with  them 
ceased  to  be  a  virtue.  But  Maxfield,  who  through  the  good 
oflSces  of  Wesley  had  obtained  ordination  from  the  Bishop 
of  Londonderry,  had  been  prominent  in  Methodism,  and 
Wesley  was  reluctant  to  silence  the  preacher  who  had  received 
the  commendation  of  his  mother.  Finally  Maxfield  with- 
drew from  the  Society,  taking  two  hundred  of  its  mem- 
bers with  him,  to  whom  he  ministered  for  twenty  years 
after  the  schism.  It  is  gratifying  to  add  that  toward  the 
close  of  his  life  he  came  to  a  better  mind ;  friendly  rela- 
tions with  his  old  associates  were  resumed  ;  Wesley  preached 
in  his  church,  and  visited  him  in  his  last  illness.  The  dissen- 
sions cost  the  London  Society  four  hundred  members,  a 
loss  from  which  it  did  not  recover  for  a  long  period.  In 
the  sequence,  however,  the  purging  was  beneficial.  Phari- 
saism was  halted,  and  credulity  and  irrational  exaltation 
were  discontinued.  Similar  disturbances  in  later  times  have 
raised  the  question  whether  the  distinction  between  regen- 


JOHN   WESLEY  345 

eration  and  sanctification  is  valid  in  actual  experience,  or 
whether  the  latter  is  simply  an  intensified  expression  of 
regeneration.  In  any  case,  the  moral  is  that  doctrines 
should  be  as  catholic  in  scope  and  simplicity  as  the 
nature  of  the  truths  they  are  intended  to  set  forth  will 
allow.  Methodism  was  bound  to  keep  alight  on  its  altars 
the  flame  of  holiness,  though  perhaps  they  might  have  been 
more  effectually  guarded  against  strange  fires.  Be  this  as 
it  may,  in  nothing  did  Wesley  show  his  sagacity  more  admi- 
rably than  in  his  refusal  to  yield  to  senseless  vaporings  on  the 
one  hand,  or,  on  the  other,  to  lassitude  and  indifference. 

While  the  heart  is  not  another  kind  of  reason,  it  is  a 
recognized  faculty  for  discerning  truth.  It  represents 
implicit  judgments,  the  relative  values  of  different  senti- 
ments and  purposes,  and  supplies  the  regulating  principles 
of  life.  Upon  it  Wesley  relied  for  these  gifts  in  the  enforce- 
ment of  his  teachings.  With  Plato  and  St.  Paul  and  other 
prophets,  he  perceived  by  its  illumination  things  eternal, 
and  that  these  could  be  attained  by  mortals.  He  modified 
these  implicit  judgments,  and  fashioned  them  into  the 
stated  beliefs  now  known  as  Wesleyan  theology.  It  was 
not  always  easy  to  do  this,  but  he  persevered  until  he  felt 
he  had  alike  satisfied  the  claims  of  reason  and  of  religion. 
His  success  was  apparent  in  those  who  received  his  message : 
they  were  no  longer  ensnared  in  a  melancholy  rotation  of 
sinning  and  repenting,  but  having  gained  the  liberty  of  the 
children  of  God,  became  a  people  "  for  His  own  possession," 
unafraid  in  the  day  of  battle,  and  who  made  a  specific 
contribution  not  only  to  the  life  and  thought  of  Protestant- 
ism, but  to  "the  total  of  truth  and  vantage  of  mankind." 
He  also  transferred  the  basis  of  the  doctrine  of  assur- 
ance from  the  objective  grounds  of  the  Church  and  the 
Sacraments  to  those  of  an  experimental  witness  within  the 
believer.  Although  he  substituted  an  infallible  Book  for 
an  infallible  Church,  it  was  not  necessary  to  the  structure 
of  which  he  was  the  architect.     Methodist  theology  is  not 


346      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

SO  highly  articulated  that  its  living  growth  cannot  supply 
the  wastes  incurred  by  large  variations  of  thought  or  advances 
in  knowledge.  Its  assignment  of  experience  as  the  final 
criterion  of  religious  truth  guards  it  from  the  liabilities  of 
less  fortunate  systems  which  dare  not  yield  one  premise 
without  endangering  the  entire  argument.  But  its  claim 
for  the  validity  of  introspection  and  its  subordination  of 
the  objective  to  the  subjective  were  kept  within  bounds, 
and  it  is  "the  conjunction  of  belief  in  the  authority  of  an 
organic  Church  with  insistence  upon  the  value  and  reality 
of  individual  experience  as  the  final  test  which  gives  to 
Methodism  its  special  position  in  the  Catholic  Church,"  ^ 
The  sectarian  asceticism  which  clouded  English  society 
with  the  gloom  of  bigotry  was  not  unknown  in  Wes- 
leyanism.  Until  the  Tractarians  taught  the  needed  lesson 
that  all  life  was  sanctified  in  Christ,  a  suspicion  of  culture 
and  of  the  aesthetic  conscience  was  found  in  Methodism  as 
a  natural  revulsion  against  their  abuse  elsewhere. 
'■  Its  inner  history  is  a  record  of  the  freedom  and  univer- 
sality of  the  Gospel  operating  on  a  scale  which  has  seldom, 
if  ever,  been  equaled  since  the  earliest  ages,  when,  as  it 
seemed  to  the  first  missionaries  of  the  Cross,  the  resto- 
ration of  all  things  was  at  hand.  Unquestionably  it  is 
the  purest  phase  of  New  Testament  Christianity  which  has 
arisen  in  modern  times.  One  is  filled  no  less  with  wonder 
at  the  measure  of  its  achievements  than  with  the  conviction 
of  its  origin  in  the  counsels  of  Eternity.  Without  adventi- 
tious aids  or  questionable  alliances,  despised  and  rejected 
by  the  wise  and  great  of  the  world,  employing  for  its  propa- 
ganda the  unfettered  Evangel  mediated  through  Wesley, 
and  relying  solely  upon  the  Holy  Spirit  for  its  success,  the 
little  company  which  first  followed  him  has  multiplied  in 
many  lands,  and  in  some  is  the  dominant  Protestantism  of 
this  era.  As  such  it  must  be  explained,  either  by  the  scientific 

'"A  New  History  of  Methodism";  edited  by  W.  J.  Townsend,  H.  B. 
Workman,  and  G.  Eayrs ;  Vol.  I,  p.  16. 


JOHN   WESLEY  347 

methods  which  now  prevail  in  the  study  of  the  past,  or 
treated  as  a  reUgious  mystery  without  any  perceptible  cause. 
Theories  which  limit  the  conveyance  of  saving  grace  to 
prescribed  channels  of  apostolical  succession  will  have  to  be 
accommodated  to  the  magnitudes  of  this  latest  offspring 
from  the  higher  powers,  or  suffer  the  fate  of  hypotheses 
which  ignore  integral  facts. 

The  most  vivid  delineation  of  the  inner  life  of  Methodism 
is  found  in  the  hymns  of  Charles  Wesley,  which  have  glorified 
Christian  worship  more  than  any  other  similar  lyrics,  with 
the  possible  exception  of  those  written  by  Isaac  Watts. 
They  set  forth  intimate  as  distinguished  from  legalistic 
religion,  radiant  with  the  beauty  of  holiness  and  the  arts 
of  consolation,  and  overflowing  with  tenderness  and  joy. 
The  cry  of  penitence,  the  answer  of  faith,  the  defiance  of 
death,  the  sound  as  of  a  trumpet,  the  opened  vials,  the 
broken  seals,  the  solemn  doom  of  Judgment,  the  triumphant 
certainty  of  an  immortality  of  passionless  renown,  and  all 
the  signs  and  wonders  of  the  Kingdom's  triumph,  were  more 
persuasively  and  exultingly  expressed  in  them  than  in  any 
other  productions  of  sacred  literature  since  the  Reforma- 
tion. Their  principal  theme  was  the  adoration  of  the 
Everlasting  Father  for  His  supreme  gift  in  Jesus  Christ 
and  for  the  love  He  is  always  seeking  to  impart  through 
Him  to  His  children. 

"  'Tis  Love !  'tis  Love !     Thou  diedst  for  me  I 
I  hear  Thy  whisper  in  my  heart ; 
The  morning  breaks,  the  shadows  flee, 
Pm-e  universal  Love  Thou  art ; 
To  me,  to  all,  Thy  mercies  move ; 
Thy  nature  and  Thy  name  is  Love." 

The  peasants  who  turned  from  their  ancestral  fanes  to 
worship  in  the  humble  meeting-houses  where  such  praises 
rang  forth  were  amply  rewarded  by  the  strength  and 
comfort  they  imparted.  Here  the  Real  Presence  was 
manifested  before    their  reverent  faith  while  with  sacred 


1 


348      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

song  they  made  melody  in  their  hearts.  In  their  in- 
sistence upon  personal  sin,  personal  forgiveness,  and  per- 
sonal assurance,  the  hymns  echo  the  individualism  which 
is  a  dominant  note  of  the  Gospel  in  its  essential  application, 
but  they  do  not  express  those  larger  social  aspects  of  reli- 
gion which  are  now  monopolizing  the  vision  of  the  Church. 
Charles's  productiveness  was  amazing ;  he  wrote  over  six 
thousand  compositions,  of  very  unequal  quality,  but  num- 
bering some  unsurpassed  in  any  language.  He  was  in  a 
marked  degree  the  creature  of  his  inspiration.  Sometimes 
his  poetic  impulse  hardly  lifted  him  above  the  flatness  of 
doggerel,  again  it  suddenly  failed  after  a  burst  of  promise, 
but,  in  those  sustained  flights  of  lyrical  rapture  which  it 
occasionally  made,  it  opened  for  the  poet  a  passage  to  the 
skies  and  raised  him  as  on  seraph  wings  to  the  very  throne 
of  God.  His  hymn,  "Jesus,  Lover  of  my  soul,"  stands  at 
the  summit  of  odes  of  its  order;  that  on  "Wrestling  Jacob" 
Isaac  Watts  averred  to  be  among  the  finest  ever  written; 
"Rejoice,  the  Lord  is  King"  is  an  entirely  different  but 
equally  noble  example  of  his  powers.  These  and  others  of  a 
notably  high  character  have  been  woven  into  the  very  fiber 
of  millions  of  souls,  and  in  them  we  come  to  the  sanctum  sanc- 
torum of  Christian  faith.  Nor  is  it  too  much  to  affirm  that 
they  are  one  of  the  strongest  bonds  of  universal  Christian 
fellowship.  The  limitations  under  which  poetry  must  always 
move  are  more  severely  felt  in  hymnal  composition  than  in 
other  forms  of  its  expression.  Dr.  Johnson  declared  that 
metrical  songs  meant  for  Christian  worship  could  not  be 
poetry,  since  it  was  necessary  to  exclude  from  them  that  play 
of  imagination  which  would  violate  orthodoxy.  On  the 
contrary,  this  term  has  little  meaning  in  hymnology :  a 
sacred  lyric  need  but  arouse  the  devout  sentiments  that 
control  human  nature  to  secure  a  place  in  the  services  of 
every  sect.  There  is  no  better  evidence  of  the  underlying 
unity  of  truly  religious  natures  than  their  independence  of 
theological    speculations  when    they  find    a    hymn  which 


JOHN    WESLEY  349 

blends  their  spirits  with  the  Spirit  of  the  Eternal.  True, 
they  revert  to  their  creeds  again,  but  stanzas  that  voice  with 
glowing  phrase  the  unconquerable  beliefs  of  men  also  fashion 
them,  and  in  this  respect  Charles  Wesley  gave  the  people 
much  of  their  theology. 

John's  fastidious  taste  revised  his  brother's  poetry  and 
modified  its  exuberances.  His  own  translations  of  the 
Moravian  hymns,  while  somewhat  bald  and  literal,  were 
excellent;  among  them  are  Scheffler's  "I  thank  Thee,  un- 
created One,"  and  Terstegeen's  "Thou  hidden  love  of  God 
unknown,"  which  has  in  it  "a  sound  as  of  the  sound  of  the 
sea."  John  Bakewell  and  Edward  Perronett  also  wrote 
some  choice  lyrics,  but  it  was  reserved  for  Thomas  Olivers 
to  rival  even  Charles  Wesley  in  his  sublime  ascription  to 
the  Everlasting : 

"The  God  of  Abraham  praise,  — 
Who  reigns  enthroned  above, 
Ancient  of  Everlasting  days 
And  God  of  love. 
Jehovah,  Great  I  Am, 
By  earth  and  heaven  confest ; 
I  bow,  and  bless  the  sacred  name 
Forever  blest." 

Commenting  on  this  hymn  of  the  little  Welsh  preacher,  whom 
Toplady  ridiculed  as  an  ignorant  cobbler,  James  Mont- 
gomery said,  "There  is  not  in  our  language  a  lyric  of  more 
majestic  style,  more  elevated,  or  more  glorious  imagery. 
Its  structure  indeed  is  unattractive  on  account  of  the  short 
lines,  but  like  a  stately  pile  of  architecture  severe  and  simple 
in  design,  it  strikes  less  on  the  first  view  than  after  deliber- 
ate examination."  The  realization  of  divine  grace  which 
gave  Methodism  its  first  outburst  of  Christian  song  had 
many  other  far-reaching  effects,  but  none  of  these  compare 
with  the  influence  of  its  sacred  poetry  over  all  classes,  and 
especially  over  the  poor  and  illiterate  multitudes  who 
were  thereby  taught  to  worship  God  aright.     Dr.  James 


350   THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

Martineau  asserted  that  the  "Collection  of  Hymns  for  the 
Use  of  the  People  called  Methodists,"  issued  in  1780,  was, 
"after  the  Scriptures,  the  grandest  instrument  of  popular 
religious  culture  that  Christendom  has  ever  produced." 

The  beginning  remains  always  the  most  notable  moment, 
and  this  carries  the  genesis  of  Methodism  beyond  the  reach 
of  artificial  growths  in  ecclesiastical  order  into  the  heart 
of  primitive  Christianity.  At  the  risk  of  repetition  it 
must  be  said  that  its  practices  were  really  reproductions 
of  those  which  first  established  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  And 
in  these  lay  its  authority,  for  "when  a  religion  has  become 
an  orthodoxy,  its  day  of  inwardness  is  over ;  the  spring  is 
dry ;  the  faithful  live  at  second  hand  exclusively  and  stone 
the  prophets  in  their  turn.  The  new  Church,  in  spite  of 
whatever  human  goodness  it  may  foster,  can  be  henceforth 
counted  on  as  a  stanch  ally  in  every  attempt  to  stifle  the 
spontaneous  religious  spirit,  and  to  stop  all  later  bubblings 
of  the  fountain  from  which  in  purer  days  it  drew  its  own 
supply  of  inspiration."  ^  There  could  be  no  better  descrip- 
tion of  the  conditions  which  Methodism  met  and  overcame 
in  the  power  of  a  holier  faith  and  purpose.  God  has  or- 
dained that  life  should  be  endowed  with  an  almost  unerring 
discrimination  in  favor  of  its  necessities  and  against  that 
which  is  inimical  to  its  welfare.  Applying  the  ordinance  to 
religion,  we  find  that  when  any  particular  form  of  Christian- 
ity seemed  requisite,  it  emerged  from  the  implicit  to  the 
explicit  stage,  was  then  adopted  as  a  governing  factor,  and 
finally  passed  away  with  the  ending  of  its  usefulness.  This 
process  affords  an  argument  for  the  predetermination  of  the 
end  which  such  forms  have  been  made  to  subserve,  and 
although  the  theologian  and  the  priest  may  mourn  its 
operation,  it  furnishes  a  basis  for  belief  in  a  superintending 
Power,  This  belief  is  strengthened  by  the  fact  that,  be- 
neath these  changes  in  the  superficial  region  of  revealed 
religion,  there  is  always  an  irreducible  body  of  truth 
*  William  James:    "Varieties  of  Religious  Experience";    p.  337. 


JOHN   WESLEY  351 

necessary  to  life.     Upon  this  sure  foundation,  John  Wesley 
built  his  theology  and  his  Church. 

Before  dealing  with  the  memorable  legislation  of  the  year 
1784,  which  made  the  Societies  in  Britain  and  America  to 
all  intents  and  purposes  self-regulating,  it  is  necessary  to 
speak  of  the  introduction  of  Methodism  into  the  colonies 
of  North  America,  since  its  presence  there  precipitated 
its  separation  from  Anglicanism.  Wesleyan  teaching  had 
been  carried  to  New  York  by  Philip  Embury  and  Barbara 
Heck,  who  were  among  the  immigrants  from  Limerick  in 
1764  and  1766.  Embury's  devotion  languished  in  his  new 
surroundings  until  Barbara  Heck  revived  it,^  when,  to- 
gether with  other  friends,  they  began  services  in  a  private 
house.  Captain  Webb,  an  officer  of  the  forty-second 
regiment  of  British  infantry  stationed  at  Albany,  who  had 
been  converted  under  Wesley  at  Bristol,  joined  the  little 
company  at  New  York,  and  in  1768  a  chapel  was  erected 
in  John  Street,  Embury  making  the  pulpit  with  his  own 
hands,  and  preaching  the  first  sermon  on  October  30.  From 
these  origins  and  those  at  the  log  meeting  house  on  Sam's 
Creek,  Maryland,  and  at  Lovely  Lane,  Baltimore,  arose 
the  Methodism  which  was  destined  to  surpass  the  parent 
body  in  numbers.  The  English  Conference  of  1769,  held  at 
Leeds,  received  and  responded  to  an  appeal  for  help  from  the 
American  brethren  by  appointing  Richard  Boardman  and 
Jacob  Pilmoor  as  their  pastors,  and  subscribing  fifty  pounds 
towards  the  debt  on  John  Street  Church,  and  twenty  pounds 
for  the  expenses  of  the  new  ministers.  Pilmoor  was  stationed 
at  Philadelphia,  and  Boardman  in  New  York.  Lloyd's 
Evening  Post  of  London,  amused  by  these  bold  measures, 
announced  that  other  promotions  would  soon  be  listed : 
"The  Rev'd.  George  Whitefield  to  be  Archbishop  of  Bos- 
ton, Rev'd.  William  Romaine  to  be  Bishop  of  New  York, 
Rev'd.   John  Wesley  to   be   Bishop   of   Pennsylvania,   the 

*  Despite  common  report  some  modern  Methodists  have  informed  the 
author  that  Embury  did  not  lose  his  zeal. 


352      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

Rev'd.  Martin  Madan  to  be  Bishop  of  the  CaroHnas, 
Rev'd.  Walter  Shirley  to  be  Bishop  of  Virginia  and  Rev'd. 
Charles  Wesley  to  be  Bishop  of  Nova  Scotia;"  a  squib  in 
which  a  clown  for  once  came  near  to  prophecy. 

Before  the  War  of  Independence,  American  Methodism 
had  a  membership  of  3148,  yet  in  1777  the  minutes  of  the 
English  Conference  do  not  even  mention  the  branch  in  the 
colonies.  "They  inform  me,"  said  Wesley,  "that  all  the 
Methodists  there  are  firm  for  the  Government  and  on  that 
account  persecuted  by  the  rebels,  only  not  to  the  death; 
that  the  preachers  are  still  threatened  but  not  stopped,  and 
that  the  work  of  God  increases  much  in  Maryland  and 
Virginia."  He  was  strongly  opposed  to  the  Revolution; 
and  his  pamphlet,  issued  in  1775,  "A  Calm  Address  to  our 
American  Colonies,"  which  procured  for  him  the  thanks  of 
the  British  government,  added  greatly  to  the  distresses  and 
difficulties  of  his  disciples  in  the  West.  The  pamphlet  was 
an  almost  literal  transcription  of  that  undiluted  sample  of 
fatuous  Toryism  and  hackwork,  Johnson's  "Taxation  no 
Tyranny,"  and  Wesley's  wholesale  appropriation  laid  him 
open  to  the  charge  of  plagiarism.  His  friends  in  America 
suppressed  it,  a  kindness  indeed  in  view  of  the  fact  that  its 
sentiments  flatly  contradicted  some  of  his  earlier  utterances. 
In  a  letter  to  Lord  North  against  that  minister's  policy, 
he  wrote,  "All  my  prejudices  are  against  the  Americans; 
for  I  am  a  High  Churchman,  the  son  of  a  High  Church- 
man, bred  up,  from  my  childhood,  in  the  highest  notion  of 
passive  obedience  and  non-resistance ;  and  yet,  in  spite  of 
all  my  long-rooted  prejudices,  I  cannot  avoid  thinking,  if 
I  think  at  all,  that  an  oppressed  people  asked  for  nothing 
more  than  their  legal  rights,  and  that  in  the  most  modest 
and  inoffensive  manner  that  the  nature  of  the  thing  would 
allow.  But,  waiving  all  considerations  of  right  and  wrong, 
I  ask,  is  it  common-sense  to  use  force  towards  the  Ameri- 
cans ?  These  men  will  not  be  frightened :  and,  it  seems, 
they  will  not  be  conquered  as  easily  as  was  at  first  imagined, 


JOHN   WESLEY  353 

they  will  probably  dispute  every  inch  of  ground;    and,  if 
they  die,  die  sword  in  hand,"  ^ 

No  nobler  or  more  impressive  figure  rose  above  the  politi- 
cal and  religious  confusion  of  the  Revolution  than  that  of 
the  great  Englishman  and  bishop  of  American  Methodism, 
Francis  Asbury.  Although  many  of  the  Episcopal  clergy 
and  five  of  his  own  colleagues  withdrew  from  their  pastoral 
charges,  he  refused  to  follow  their  example,  suppressed  his 
natural  sympathies  with  his  native  land,  and  never  ceased 
to  preach  and  toil  among  his  scattered  and  afflicted  members. 
He  was  born  on  August  20,  1745,  at  Handsworth,  near 
Birmingham,  a  few  miles  from  the  locality  where  Wesley 
underwent  his  fiercest  persecution  and  won  one  of  his  most 
signal  triumphs.  Blessed  in  his  parentage,  and  always 
spiritually  disposed,  Asbury,  then  in  his  fourteenth  year, 
hearing  of  the  Wednesbury  riots,  went  to  the  scene  of  the 
disturbance  to  find  out  what  kind  of  piety  it  was  that  had 
aroused  and  then  subdued  the  hostility  of  the  mob.  He 
returned  a  Methodist,  and  a  warm  advocate  of  Methodism. 
About  three  years  later  he  began  to  hold  public  meetings, 
and  when  other  places  were  closed  against  him  had  recourse 
to  his  father's  house,  where  he  exhorted  and  prayed  with 
the  neighbors.  When  he  was  twenty-one,  Wesley  enrolled 
him  among  his  itinerants,  and  in  1771  sent  him  to  Maryland. 
Asbury  felt  some  misgivings  that  he  had  perhaps  undertaken 
a  venture  beyond  his  powers,  and  wrote  in  his  Journal, 
"If  God  does  not  acknowledge  me  in  America,  I  will  soon 
return  to  England."  With  this  resolution  he  sailed  from 
Bristol,  never  to  see  his  relatives  or  Wesley  again.  But 
though  the  seas  separated  them,  the  ideals  and  doctrines 
of  Methodism  were  embodied  and  proclaimed  by  him  as  by 
no  other  preacher  except  Wesley  himself,  whom  he  equaled, 
if  indeed  he  did  not  exceed  him,  in  privations  and  labors. 
The  text  of  his  first  sermon  at  Baltimore  was  a  suitable  motto 
for   forty-five   years  of   illustrious  service :   "  I  determined 

1  L.  Tyerman  :    "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  Ill,  p.  198. 
2a 


354      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

not  to  know  anything  among  you,  save  Jesus  Christ  and 
Him  crucified."  Sorely  grieved  and  hampered  by  the  quarrel 
between  the  two  nations,  the  one  the  country  of  his  birth, 
the  other  of  his  adoption,  he  was  nevertheless  sustained  by 
the  ambition  that  the  newly  acquired  freedom  of  the  United 
States  should  be  enlightened  and  purified  by  the  saving  knowl- 
edge of  God.  His  was  that  higher  patriotism  which  soared 
beyond  strife  and  blundering,  and,  when  every  attachment 
to  the  past  became  an  avenue  of  pain,  and  his  choice  for 
the  future  caused  many  to  malign  him,  he  transcended  the 
darkness  and  dismay  and  became  an  historic  pleader  for  the 
peace  and  federation  of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ. 

Asbury  showed  an  adaptability  for  the  Republic  and 
its  institutions  beyond  that  of  any  other  clergyman  of 
English  birth.  He  came  from  the  artisans  and  laborers  of 
the  Midland  shires  to  the  plain  folk  of  the  Eastern  States, 
unembarrassed  by  social  or  ecclesiastical  prejudices.  One 
fears  to  speculate  on  what  might  have  been  the  fate  of 
American  Methodism  had  such  a  cleric  as  Charles  Wesley 
controlled  it  at  the  critical  juncture.  Fortunately  for  his 
own  reputation  and  for  his  brother's  work,  this  was  not  the 
case.  Although  Asbury  had  few  intellectual  gifts  comparable 
with  theirs,  he  possessed  a  loyalty,  a  determination,  and  a 
soundness  of  judgment  which  enabled  him  to  hold  intact  the 
thin  lines  of  his  little  army  until  the  propitious  moment  came 
for  advance  and  conquest. 

Tall,  gaunt,  and  ascetic  in  appearance,  clad  in  a  plain 
drab  suit,  a  stock,  and  a  low,  broad-brimmed  hat,  and 
married  only  to  the  Church,  twice  yearly  he  rode  along  the 
Atlantic  seaboard  from  Connecticut  to  the  Carolinas,  and 
westward  through  the  mountains  to  the  farther  slopes  of  the 
Alleghanies,  then  the  frontiers  of  civilization.  He  forded 
rivers  and  followed  trails  which  led  to  the  solitudes  of  the 
virgin  forest.  Indian  savages  or  white  fugitives  from  justice 
were  frequently  his  only  companions  in  the  wilderness.  If 
his  horse  cast  a  shoe,  he  bound  the  hoof  with  bull's  hide  and 


JOHN   WESLEY  355 

pushed  on.  In  a  time  when  steamboats  and  railroads  were 
unknown  and  coaches  rare,  he  made  his  tours  of  four  to  five 
thousand  miles  annually,  preaching  at  least  once  a  day,  and 
three  times  on  the  Lord's  Day.  The  families  he  encountered 
in  these  lonely  journeyings  were  not  always  decent  or  hospi- 
table, but  he  never  called  on  them  without  prayer,  ot  left 
them  without  a  blessing.  Quarterly  meetings,  camp  meet- 
ings, and  seven  annual  Conferences,  all  widely  apart,  were 
the  rallying  points  of  his  activity,  and  he  visited  them  at 
least  once  a  year,  besides  writing  a  thousand  letters  annually 
to  his  preachers  and  helpers.  This  prodigious  exertion  was 
accomplished  under  constant  bodily  suffering ;  yet  aches  and 
pains,  chills  and  fever,  were  mere  trifles  to  his  superior  spirit, 
and  could  not  dismay  him.  A  diligent  student,  he  became 
proficient  in  Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew,  was  a  master  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  and  had  a  respectable  acquaintance  with 
other  branches  of  literature.  In  his  old  age,  when  weak  and 
crippled  by  infirmity,  he  reluctantly  consented  to  use  a 
light  carriage.  He  clung  to  his  office  with  tenacity,  con- 
tinually ordaining  preachers,  planting  churches,  sending 
fourth  pioneers,  and  like  the  bird  which  sees  not  the  case- 
ment for  the  sky,  he  was  slow  to  learn  that  neither  his  ardor 
nor  his  austerity  could  be  imparted  to  others  without  their 
consent.  But  these  were  only  spots  on  his  sun,  and,  bishop 
though  he  was,  as  all  men  knew,  his  spirit  of  beautiful 
humility  was  shown  in  his  charge  that  after  his  death  no 
mention  should  be  made  of  him,  nor  any  biography  be 
written.  He  died  on  March  31,  1816,  at  the  house  of  his 
old  friend  George  Arnold,  near  Fredericksburg,  Virginia, 
where  he  had  tarried  on  his  way  to  the  Conference  at 
Baltimore. 

Some  results  of  his  unremitting  devotion  are  seen  in  the 
growth  of  the  movement  during  his  episcopate.  At  his  ordi- 
nation, in  1784,  there  were  eighty-three  itinerants  traveling 
forty-six  circuits,  and  less  than  fifteen  thousand  members; 
at    his    death    there  were  over    seven    hundred   preachers 


356      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

ministering  to  more  than  two  hundred  and  eleven  thousand 
members.  Among  the  noble  band  of  circuit  riders,  who 
emulated  their  bishop's  example  of  sacrificial  service,  were 
Jesse  Lee,  Enoch  George,  Thomas  Ware,  Hope  Hull, 
Ezekiel  Cooper,  Freeborn  Garrettson,  Benjamin  Abbott, 
John  Emory,  William  McKendree,  Robert  Roberts,  John 
Dickins  —  a  succession  of  prophets  of  God,  of  whom  the 
Church  and  the  Republic  they  lived  to  serve  may  well  be 
proud. 

The  Societies  were  organized  under  Wesley's  plan,  and 
guided  by  his  wishes ;  the  class  meeting,  the  love  feast,  and 
the  quarterly  and  annual  Conferences  being  duplicates  of 
those  in  Great  Britain.  At  first  New  England  was  averse 
to  Methodism,  but  in  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Maryland, 
the  Southern  States,  and  on  the  ever  receding  frontiers  it 
had  a  free  field,  and  soon  became  an  important  factor,  some 
of  its  preachers  helping  to  build  cities  and  commonwealths 
as  well  as  churches.  They  came  at  an  opportune  moment ; 
the  pastoral  oflBce  in  America  had  defaulted  in  respect  to 
the  Sacraments,  the  majority  of  the  Anglican  clergy  had 
been  dispersed  by  the  conflict  with  Britain,  and  those  who 
remained  were  at  a  low  ebb  of  learning  and  religion.  Bishop 
White  lamented  that  "  the  Church  of  England  was  becoming 
more  and  more  unpopular,  a  useless  burden  on  the  com- 
munity." Dr.  Hawks  relates  that  a  large  number  of  its 
edifices  in  Virginia  were  ruined,  and  twenty-three  out  of 
ninety-five  parishes  forsaken.^  Under  these  circumstances 
the  Methodists  began  to  inquire  why  their  own  ministers 
should  not  have  authority  to  administer  the  Holy  Com- 
munion. For  the  time,  Thomas  Rankin  induced  the 
preachers  to  await  Mr.  Wesley's  advice,  but  the  agitation 
increased,  until  in  1779  it  widened  into  an  actual  breach 
between  the  Northern  preachers,  who  pleaded  for  patient 
delay,  and  those  south  of  Philadelphia,  who  asked  for  full 

•  For  a  description  of  the  American  Episcopal  Clergy  in  Virginia,  see 
"Richard  Carvel,"  by  Winston  Churchill. 


JOHN   WESLEY  357 

ministerial  rights.  The  latter  were  temporarily  conciliated 
by  Asbury's  promise  that  he  would  appeal  to  the  Founder 
for  an  adjustment  of  the  matter.  The  interests  of  souls 
were  at  stake,  and  the  demands  actuated  by  this  considera- 
tion brooked  no  further  parleying. 

Wesley  had  already  met  the  clergyman  whom  he  was 
about  to  designate  as  Asbury's  senior  colleague,  and  whose 
name  is  connected  with  acts  which  led  to  the  constitution 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  of  America.  Thomas 
Coke,  a  gentleman  commoner  of  Jesus  College,  Oxford, 
became  Wesley's  first  lieutenant,  visiting  the  Societies  in 
Ireland  alternately  with  him  and  exercising  some  of  his 
delegated  authority.  Coke  was  the  founder  of  the  Foreign 
Missionary  Society  and  one  of  its  most  generous  supporters, 
and  he  wrought  earnestly  in  behalf  of  Home  Missions  in 
England  and  Wales.  Asbury,  on  hearing  of  his  death,  spoke 
of  him  as  "a  minister  of  Christ,  in  zeal,  in  labors,  and 
in  services  the  greatest  man  of  the  last  century."  Not- 
withstanding his  many  excellencies.  Coke's  restless  energies 
were  not  always  judiciously  directed.  On  more  than  one 
occasion  his  ambitions  excited  resentment,  nor  does  Dr. 
Stevens's  defense  of  him  quite  remove  the  impression  that  he 
had  entertained  designs  upon  the  superintendency  to  which 
he  was  ordained.  Yet  as  an  Oxford  graduate,  a  priest  of 
the  Church  of  England,  a  doctor  of  laws,  and  a  more  gifted 
preacher  than  Asbury,  Coke  would  naturally  be  preferred 
for  that  office.  Wesley  did  not  proceed  in  the  matter 
without  deliberation,  and  only  after  he  had  failed  in  his 
efforts  to  persuade  Dr.  Lowth,  then  Bishop  of  London,  to 
ordain  a  preacher  that  the  pastoral  necessities  of  Ameri- 
can Methodists  might  be  regularly  met.  Hitherto  he  had 
been  correct  in  his  contention  that  nothing  he  had  set  in 
motion  was  inconsistent  with  his  position  as  an  Anglican 
clergyman.  But  he  was  now  confronted  by  a  condition, 
not  a  theory;  and  one  accentuated  by  political  misunder- 
standings   eventuating  in   war   and   separation.      Nor  did 


358      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

he  have  any  means  at  hand  to  supply  the  imperative 
requirements  of  his  American  members.  Fletcher  of  Made- 
ley  was  so  sensible  of  their  neglected  state  that  he  would  have 
gone  to  its  relief  had  his  health  permitted,  and  he  besought 
Wesley,  by  whom  he  was  esteemed  above  other  advisers, 
to  accede  to  the  request  of  the  American  Methodists  and 
grant  them  an  ordained  ministry.  It  was  superfluous  to  ask 
for  Charles  Wesley's  opinion ;  since  he  would  have  sacrificed 
the  Methodism  of  the  Republic  to  Anglican  conceptions 
of  unity  and  order.  Coke  only  consented  to  go  on  the 
stipulation  that  Wesley  should  give  him  "by  the  imposi- 
tion of  hands  the  power  of  ordaining  others."  Accordingly, 
without  haste,  and  in  the  full  knowledge  that  he  was 
about  to  incur  the  lasting  disapproval  of  his  Church, 
Wesley  summoned  Coke,  with  two  itinerants,  Richard  What- 
coat  and  Thomas  Vasey,  to  Bristol,  and  there  on  the  20th 
of  September,  1784,  in  his  private  chamber,  he  set  apart 
the  itinerant  preachers  as  presbyters,  and  laid  his  hands  on 
Coke,  consecrating  him  "to  the  office  of  Superintendent  of 
the  work  in  America." 

He  instructed  Coke  to  take  with  him  the  two  newly  made 
presbyters,  and  in  like  manner  set  apart  Asbury,  first  as  a 
deacon,  then  as  a  presbyter,  and  then  as  his  associate  in 
the  superintendency.  Forms  of  ordination  for  deacons, 
elders,  and  superintendents  were  prepared  by  Wesley,  which 
indicated  that  acts  and  terms  he  had  purposely  avoided  at 
home  were  now  to  be  authorized  in  America.  Thus  he 
assumed  episcopal  functions,  and,  if  the  ordination  of  Coke 
meant  anything  at  all,  it  signified  that  he  had  received  the 
same  functions  from  Wesley,  subject  to  the  ratification  of 
the  American  preachers.  It  was  so  understood  and  approved 
by  them;  at  the  Christmas  Conference  of  Baltimore,  on 
December  27th  of  the  same  year,  the  selection  of  Coke  was 
confirmed,  and  Asbury  was  elected  by  the  Conference  and 
consecrated  by  Coke,  assisted  by  several  presbyters.  Several 
presbyters  and  deacons  were  also  elected  and  ordained  on 


JOHN   WESLEY  359 

the  following  day.  In  this  manner  began  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America.  It  was 
the  first  Church  thus  established  in  the  young  Republic,  shar- 
ing its  hopes  and  fears,  and  occupying  a  continental  expanse 
which  gave  it  ample  room  for  its  singular  admixture  of  auto- 
cratic and  democratic  traits  in  a  system  approved  by  Wesley, 
Fletcher,  Coke,  Asbury,  and  its  own  preachers.  In  May,  1789, 
its  chief  pastors  presented  an  address  to  President  Washing- 
ton beginning  with  the  superscription  "We,  the  bishops  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church"  ;  and  since  then  its  life  and 
work  have  been  incorporated  with  those  of  the  nation  in 
which  it  is  to-day  the  largest  Protestant  denomination. 

After  the  irrevocable  step  was  taken  the  hitherto  unques- 
tioned rule  of  Wesley  was  no  longer  absolute.  The  arbitrary 
change  of  the  title  of  superintendent  to  that  of  bishop 
irritated  him  because  of  the  adventitious  dignities  it  sug- 
gested, but  he  was  powerless  to  prevent  it.  Nor  could  the 
liberties  he  had  granted  to  the  ministry  abroad  be  finally 
withheld  at  home,  and  after  a  prolonged  interval  they  became 
the  unquestioned  right  of  all  the  preachers  there.  At  the 
American  Methodist  Conference  in  1789  the  first  question 
asked  was,  "  Who  are  the  persons  that  exercise  the  episcopal 
office  in  the  Methodist  Church  in  Europe  and  America?" 
The  answer  was,  "  John  Wesley,  Thomas  Coke,  and  Francis 
Asbury  by  regular  order  and  succession."  Although  their 
office  was  strictly  defined  as  such  and  not  as  an  order, 
these  phrases  must  have  sounded  grandiloquently  imper- 
tinent in  the  ears  of  ecclesiastics  who  had  hitherto  monop- 
olized them.  Apart  from  this  they  had  several  advan- 
tages; and  not  the  least,  that  the  colorless  character  and 
deferential  attitude  of  a  hybrid  organization  were  abolished. 
The  language  of  the  New  Testament  was  also  used  to 
describe  other  institutions  and  offices  of  the  Church,  whose 
episcopacy  has  since  been  held,  not  in  any  sense  as  the  em- 
bodiment of  an  apostolic  succession,  but  as  a  personalized 
and  historic  center  of  unity,  administration,  and  efficiency. 


360      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

Charles  Wesley  reproached  his  brother  for  the  bold  and  un- 
expected procedure  which  frustrated  his  hopes,  and  appeared 
to  him  as  "the  beginning  of  a  schism  as  causeless  and  un- 
provoked as  the  American  Revolution."  His  complaints 
and  groanings  were  vented  in  a  letter  to  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Chandler,  dated  April  28,  1785:  "I  never  lost  my  dread 
of  separation,  or  ceased  to  guard  our  Societies  against  it.  I 
can  scarcely  yet  believe  it,  that,  in  his  eighty-second  year, 
my  brother,  my  old,  intimate  friend  and  companion,  should 
have  assumed  the  episcopal  character,  ordained  elders, 
consecrated  a  bishop,  and  sent  him  to  ordain  our  lay  preachers 
in  America.  I  was  then  in  Bristol,  at  his  elbow ;  yet  he  never 
gave  me  the  least  hint  of  his  intention."  Charles  further 
affirmed  that  Lord  Mansfield,  the  Chief  Justice  of  England, 
had  told  him  a  year  before  that  ordination  was  separa- 
tion ;  and  such  it  was  from  the  standpoint  of  the  church- 
manship  which  he  represented.  To  what,  then,  beyond  the 
necessitous  circumstances  already  related  is  to  be  attributed 
Wesley's  conviction  that  he  had  a  right  to  discard  the  prin- 
ciples his  brother  so  strenuously  upheld  ?  He  had  read  in  1746 
Lord  King's  account  of  the  Primitive  Church,  from  which 
he  derived  the  teaching  that  bishops  and  presbyters  were 
originally  one  order.  In  his  "  Notes  on  the  New  Testament" 
he  cautiously  commented  that  "perhaps  elders  and  bishops 
were  the  same  .  .  .  and  their  names  were  used  promiscu- 
ously in  the  first  ages."  In  1756  he  stated  that  he  still  believed 
the  episcopal  form  of  Church  government  to  be  Scriptural 
and  apostolical,  but  that  it  was  prescribed  in  Scripture  he 
did  not  believe.  This  opinion,  which  he  once  zealously 
espoused,  he  had  been  heartily  ashamed  of  since  studying 
Bishop  Stillingfleet's  "Irenicon."  Canon  Overton  laments 
that  so  well-read  and  thoughtful  a  man  as  Wesley  should 
have  attached  any  weight  to  the  youthful  utterances  of 
these  two  men.  King  and  Stillingfleet,  who  afterwards  re- 
canted.^   Nevertheless  they  leavened  Wesley's  churchman- 

*"The  Evangelical  Revival";    p.  18. 


JOHN   WESLEY  361 

ship,  and  he  now  wrote  to  Charles  that  he  firmly  believed 
himself  to  be  "  a  Scriptural  episcopos  as  much  as  any  man  in 
England."  The  uninterrupted  succession,  he  declared  else- 
where, was  "a,  rope  of  sand  ;  a  fable  that  no  man  could 
prove." 

The  endless  debates  on  this  affirmation  have  no  place 
here  ;  they  have  been  best  summed  up  in  Bishop  Lightfoot's 
verdict  that  the  episcopal  office  did  not  arise  out  of  the 
apostolical  by  succession,  but  out  of  the  presbyteral  by 
localization.^  This  conclusion  has  found  powerful  advocates 
in  modern  scholarship,-  and  if  it  is  valid,  Wesley's  acts  were 
in  keeping  with  the  ancient  order.  On  the  other  hand,  for 
forty  years  he  had  carefully  abstained  from  them,  and  had 
even  said  that  for  an  unordained  preacher  to  administer 
within  his  Societies  was  a  sin  which  he  dared  not  tolerate, 
although  by  sending  out  scores  of  preachers  without  ordina- 
tion, he  had  really  made  apostolic  succession  an  anachronism 
so  far  as  he  was  concerned.  Of  course  his  setting  apart  of 
Coke  was  indefensible  from  the  standpoint  of  Anglicanism. 
"What  could  Wesley  confer  upon  Coke  which  Coke  might 
not  equally  have  conferred  upon  Wesley?"  queries  Canon 
Overton.  And  the  answer  is,  if  given  according  to  the 
Canon's  conception  of  ordination,  nothing.  But  a  large 
body  of  Christians  have  denied  the  dogma  of  apostolical 
succession;  they  have  resented  its  imputations,  and  have 
liberated  themselves  from  its  oppressions.  Wesley,  at  least, 
gave  Coke  the  premiership  in  a  great  Church,  with  the 
practical  results  that  followed,  and  Canon  Overton  adds, 
with  justice,  that  the  true  explanation  of  his  conduct  in 

>  See  the  references  to  this  question  in  the  subsequent  chapters  on  Newman. 

''For  an  interesting  discussion  on  this  question  see  "Some  Remarks  on 
Bishop  Lightfoot's  Dissertation  on  the  Christian  Ministry,"  by  Charles 
Wordsworth,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  St.  Andrews;  also  "The  Leaves  of  the  Tree: 
Studies  in  Biography,"  by  Arthur  Christopher  Benson.  Whatever  contra- 
diction of  misunderstandings  Bishop  Lightfoot  afterwards  made  he  did  not 
retract  the  main  statements  of  his  Essay  on  the  Christian  Ministry, 
found  in  the  Appendix  to  his  "  Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Philip- 
pians." 


362      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

this,  as  in  other  things,  was  the  practical  character  of  his 
mind,  which  led  him  to  make  everything  subservient  to 
his  work  of  restoring  the  image  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man. 

An  unprejudiced  review  of  the  matter,  which  in  thought, 
purpose,  and  accomplishment  covered  nearly  half  a  century, 
shows  that  any  inconsistencies  —  and  there  were  some  — 
did  not  affect  the  integrity  of  Wesley's  main  position.  He 
treated  ordinances  and  offices  as  means  of  grace  which  should 
be  held  paramount  so  long  as  they  promoted  Christianity. 
When  they  ceased  to  do  this  they  were  set  aside,  and 
he  took  occasion,  under  necessity,  to  make  the  freedom 
and  accessibility  of  God's  Kingdom  wider  than  antiquity 
had  decreed.  What  he  said  will  be  long  remembered,  what 
he  did  will  be  conserved  in  the  general  outcome.  The  vast 
majority  of  his  sons  and  daughters  in  the  family  of  Metho- 
dism partake  of  the  Living  Bread  in  their  own  sanctuaries, 
unhindered  by  any  consciousness  of  the  warfare  he  waged 
with  himself  and  others  for  their  birthright;  and  those 
who  have  reflected  upon  it  partake  with  no  less  faith  because 
of  the  course  he  adopted.^ 

The  Deed  of  Declaration  which  was  executed  on  February 
28,  1784,  and  a  few  days  later  enrolled  in  Chancery,  has 
been  called  the  Magna  Charta  of  Wesleyan  Methodism.  It 
substituted  for  Wesley  a  permanent  body  of  one  hundred 
ministers,  selected  by  him  and  authorized  to  bear  the  re- 
sponsibilities and  discharge  the  duties  of  the  supervision  of 
the  Societies.  This  instrument  was  adopted  none  too  soon ; 
he  was  now  an  old  man,  and  though  still  vigorous,  could 
no  longer  be  expected  to  take  oversight  of  the  Church  in 
England,  Ireland,  and  America,  which  in  1790_  numbered 
nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  members.  He 
unwillingly  restricted  his  hitherto  incessant  journeyings, 
and  approached  a  peaceful  twilight  which  the  night  of  death 

*  See  the  Methodist  Review  for  July-August,  1915,  for  a  very  able  article 
by  the  Rev.  Dr.  J.  M.  Buckley  on  the  Methodist  Episcopacy ;  also  the 
Christian  Advocate  for  September  the  30th,  1915. 


JOHN   WESLEY  363 

lingered  to  disturb,  moving  among  the  people  of  the  three 
kingdoms  as  the  most  apostolic  figure  of  his  generation. 
In  Ireland  as  much  as  in  Great  Britain  his  last  appear- 
ances were  scenes  of  affectionate  farewell  and  open  sorrow 
at  his  departure.  The  accusations  that  he  was  a  Jesuit,  a 
Jacobite,  a  fanatic,  a  former  rumseller,  and  a  wily  hypo- 
crite, had  gone  never  to  return.  Many  Anglican  clergymen 
and  their  congregations  gave  him  a  respectful  hearing,  and 
he  received  more  invitations  to  preach  before  them  than  he 
could  accept.  "I  am  become,"  he  said  in  1785,  "I  know 
not  how,  a  most  honorable  man.  The  scandal  of  the  Cross 
is  ceased,  and  all,  rich  and  poor,  Papists  and  Protestants, 
behave  with  courtesy,  nay,  with  seeming  good  will."  "It 
was,  I  believe,"  wrote  Crabb  Robinson,  "in  October,  1790, 
and  not  long  before  his  death,  that  I  heard  John  Wesley  in 
the  great  round  Meeting  House  at  Colchester.  He  stood 
in  a  wide  pulpit,  and  on  each  side  of  him  stood  a  minister, 
and  the  two  held  him  up,  having  their  hands  under  his  arm- 
pits. His  feeble  voice  was  scarcely  audible,  but  his  reverend 
countenance,  especially  his  long  white  locks,  formed  a  pic- 
ture never  to  be  forgotten.  There  was  a  vast  crowd  of 
lovers  and  admirers ;  ...  of  the  kind  I  never  saw  anything 
comparable  to  it  in  after  life."^  In  a  farewell  letter  dated 
February  1,  1791,  addressed  to  Ezekiel  Cooper,  an  Ameri- 
can preacher  known  as  the  Lycurgus  of  his  Church,  Wesley 
told  of  his  infirmities  and  how  that  time  had  shaken  his  hand 
and  death  was  not  far  behind.  Although  eighty-six  years 
of  age,  he  enjoyed  comparative  freedom  from  pain :  his 
sight  and  strength  had  failed,  but  he  could  still  "scrawl  a 
few  lines  and  creep  though  not  run."  He  concluded  with 
the  consoling  prediction  that  his  work  would  remain  and 
bear  fruit,  and  that  Methodists  were  one  throughout  the 
world  and  would  ever  continue  one, 

"*  Though  mountains  rise  and  oceans  roll, 
To  sever  us  in  vain.'  " 

'  Henry  Crabb  Robinson's  Diary  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  19. 


364      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

Whitefield  died  at  Newburyport,  Massachusetts,  in  1770, 
about  the  time  Asbury  entered  the  field  from  which  the 
famous  orator  was  suddenly  removed.  Charles  Wesley, 
though  nearly  five  years  younger  than  John,  died  on  March 
29th,  1788,  His  unequalled  brother,  on  whom  rested  the 
glow  of  his  approaching  translation,  was  preaching  in  Staf- 
fordshire at  the  time.  At  the  very  moment  when  Charles 
passed  away,  the  congregation,  unconscious  of  this,  was 
singing  his  hymn, 

"Come,  let  us  join  our  friends  above 
That  have  obtained  the  prize." 

Wesley  did  not  hear  of  his  death  until  the  day  after  the 
funeral.  He  deeply  felt  the  separation,  and  a  fortnight 
later,  when  attempting  to  give  out  another  of  Charles's 
hymns  on  "Wrestling  Jacob,"  he  faltered  at  the   lines, 

"My  company  before  is  gone, 
And  I  am  left  alone  with  Thee;" 

sat  down  in  the  pulpit,  and  buried  his  face  in  his  hands. 
The  singing  ceased,  and  the  people  wept  with  him.  In  a 
little  while  he  regained  self-control,  and  proceeded  with  the 
service.  He  hastened  to  London  from  the  North,  that  he 
might  console  the  widow  and  children  of  the  departed  poet. 
His  sermon  at  Leatherhead,  Surrey,  on  Wednesday  the  23d 
of  February,  was  his  last  public  utterance ;  the  text  being, 
"  Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  He  may  be  found ;  call  upon  Him 
while  He  is  near."  With  this  message  of  mercy  and  exhorta- 
tion his  peerless  ministry  ended  as  it  had  begun,  in  the 
urgency  of  compassion,  the  strength  of  righteousness,  the 
light  of  love,  and  the  demonstration  of  the  Spirit.  The 
next  day  he  spent  with  Mr.  Wolf?  at  Balham,  and  there 
penned  his  well-known  letter  to  William  Wilberforce,  con- 
cluding with  the  stirring  appeal,  "  O !  be  not  weary  in  well 
doing.  Go  on,  in  the  name  of  God,  and  in  the  power  of  His 
might,  till  even  American  slavery,  the  vilest  that  ever  saw 


JOHN   WESLEY  365 

the  sun,  shall  vanish  away  before  it.  .  .  ."^  It  was  entirely 
appropriate  that  the  warfare  he  had  waged  for  sixty  years 
upon  the  cruelty  of  society  toward  the  fallen  and  the  help- 
less should  conclude  with  this  impassioned  protest  against 
human  bondage. 

Returning  to  his  house  in  City  Road  on  Friday,  the  25th, 
he  spent  the  remaining  hours  in  prayer  and  praise.  During 
an  interval  he  asked  those  around  him  that  his  sermon  on 
"The  Love  of  God  to  fallen  man"  should  be  scattered  broad- 
cast and  given  to  everybody.  Later,  he  blessed  them,  and 
lifting  his  hand  in  grateful  triumph,  exclaimed,  "The  best 
of  all  is,  God  is  with  us!"  Shortly  afterwards,  on  March 
the  second,  1791,  this  splendid  being  put  on  immortality. 

Epilogue 

The  history  of  Methodism  beyond  its  leading  events  in 
the  eighteenth  century  has  been  necessarily  excluded  from 
this  account.  Speaking  generally,  it  followed  three  main 
lines  of  development :  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  Evangeli- 
cal Revival;  the  organization  of  the  Methodist  Churches 
therefrom  ;  and  their  more  familar  expansions  of  the  modern 
period,  which  by  no  means  exhaust  the  results  of  the 
movement,  for  in  many  instances  its  palpable  and  its 
hidden  influences  have  blended  with  the  life  of  the  nations 
it  affected,  purifying  and  strengthening  them  for  domestic, 
social,  and  political  reforms.  Nor  have  the  limits  imposed 
here  allowed  us  to  dwell  at  length  upon  the  multifarious 
details  of  Wesley's  personal  career,  which  abound  in 
the  biographies  of  Southey,  Watson,  Lelievre,  Tyerman, 
Telford,  Fitchett,  and  Winchester,  the  books  of  Workman, 
and  also  in  Wesley's  self-revelatory  Journals.  He  had 
the  serenity  of  one  who  is  at  home  in  his  own  mind,  who 
draws  his  water  from  his  own  fountain,  and  by  means  of 
whose  inward  light  the  path  ahead  is  always  plain.     These 

»  L.  Tyerman  :   "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  Ill,  p.  650. 


366      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

outstanding  qualities,  and  others  which  have  been  men- 
tioned, reveal  with  unusual  directness  their  heavenly  sources. 
Like  the  large-minded  man  in  Aristotle's  "  Ethics  "  he  thought 
himself  equal  to  grand  moral  achievements,  and  was  justified 
to  the  extent  that  the  rare  virtue  of  absolute  disinterested- 
ness gradually  became  a  ruling  factor  in  his  conduct.  He 
lavished  all  his  energies  and  some  of  his  best  years  upon  the 
search  for  divine  illumination.  This  obtained,  he  at  once 
became  the  director  of  a  religious  crusade  which  has  helped 
to  upraise  the  race.  The  means  he  employed  were  exposed 
to  reprobation,  but  they  proved  stronger  than  the  formidable 
display  of  earthly  and  ecclesiastical  powers  arrayed  against 
them.  Nor  is  it  possible  to  escape  the  conclusion  that  in 
all  these  things  his  course  and  destiny  were  not  self-chosen, 
after  the  usual  meaning  of  the  phrase,  but  in  a  special  and 
peculiar  sense  shaped  by  the  guidance  of  his  Maker.  For 
God  has  always  been  pleased  to  build  his  best  bridges  with 
human  piers,  never  allowing  their  faults  to  impede  the  work- 
manship when  men  were  solicitous  that  they  should  not 
do  so. 

The  leisure  of  mind  which  followed  the  stirring  epoch  in 
which  Wesley  acted  so  creatively  has  produced  a  number 
of  tributes  vindicating  him  in  every  quarter  of  his  historical 
firmament.  Mr.  Augustine  Birrell  says  that  "  no  man  lived 
nearer  the  center  than  John  Wesley,  neither  Clive  nor  Pitt, 
neither  Mansfield  nor  Johnson.  You  cannot  cut  him  out  of 
our  national  life.  No  single  figure  influenced  so  many 
minds,  no  single  voice  touched  so  many  hearts.  No  other 
man  did  such  a  life's  work  for  England."  ^  Macaulay's 
better  known  eulogy  is  equally  generous.  The  famous 
essayist  compared  him  with  Richelieu,  whose  genius  so- 
lidified the  French  nation  and  stimulated  the  authority 
of  its  monarchy.  In  like  manner  Wesley's  weak  chain  of 
organizations  was  lengthened  link  by  link,  and  as  they 
developed  he   formulated  rules  for    their   guidance,    until 

'  "John  Wesley,"  in  "Essays  and  Addresses"  ;   p.  35. 


JOHN   WESLEY  367 

Methodism  became  nothing  less  than  an  army  intent  on  the 
moral  conquest  of  the  race. 

An  eighteenth  century  man,  he  shared  in  no  small  degree 
the  strange  contradictions  of  his  age.  His  character  was 
both  simple  and  complex  because  it  was  in  some  measure 
the  reflection  of  the  people  in  which  he  moved,  whose  national 
texture  has  been  thickly  packed  and  plaited  fold  upon  fold 
by  an  endless  variety  of  custom  and  habit.  In  a  correspond- 
ing way  he  dealt  with  many-sided  truths  and  situations, 
undeterred  by  dread  of  paradox  or  the  inconsistency  of  poli- 
cies which  might  appear  to  lead  in  opposite  directions.  His 
experiences  were  both  extensive  and  remarkable,  and  per- 
haps this  may  explain  the  supernatural  aspect  which  he 
gave  to  them.  Yet  in  matters  where  he  was  not  directly 
interested  he  was  capable  of  a  becoming  skepticism,  and  his 
belief  in  witchcraft  and  in  the  doctrine  of  particular  Provi- 
dence, which  he  sometimes  carried  to  great  lengths,  showed 
no  more  credulity  than  did  the  notions  of  Addison,  the  pride 
of  Oxford,  whose  "  Essays  on  the  Evidences  of  Christianity  " 
include  stories  as  absurd  as  the  Cock  Lane  ghost,  and  for- 
geries as  rank  as  William  Henry  Ireland's  "  Vortigern." 
Exact  and  vigorous  in  his  thinking,  Wesley's  ideas  were  as  far 
removed  from  what  is  meretricious  or  vulgar  as  were  those 
of  the  best  classics  with  which  he  was  familiar.  In  his 
case  great  talents  and  considerable  learning  proved  their 
suitability  for  a  world-wide  and  permanent  religious  propa- 
gandism,  and  his  career  as  an  evangelist,  who  was  also  a 
man  of  culture,  is  an  effective  answer  to  those  who  deprecate 
the  value  of  intellectual  attainments  in  such  efforts.  There 
have  been  many  imitators  of  Wesley,  but,  as  yet,  he  has 
had  no  successor. 

His  steadfast  mind  discouraged  the  fitful  gleams  of  self- 
deception  from  which  he  was  not  entirely  free.  Hasty 
or  false  assumptions  were  distasteful  to  his  more  robust 
processes  of  thought,  and  any  tendency  to  purely  emotional 
excitement  in  himself  or  in  others  was  generally  subdued 


368      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

by  his  innate  conservatism.  Clerics  and  philosophers  whose 
prejudices  he  encountered  dubbed  him  a  fanatic;  the  be- 
lievers whose  faith  he  aided  extolled  him  as  a  saint  and  a 
sage.  He  went  quietly  forward,  living  down  rancor  and 
disregarding  praise,  examining  and  restating  his  doctrinal 
views  and  qualifying  them  by  their  hold  on  life.  A  per- 
vading reasonableness  gave  weight  to  his  utterance,  and  its 
sincerity  and  restraint  enabled  him  to  overcome  his  critics. 
In  the  excitement  attending  a  great  revival  he  did  not  for- 
feit his  sanity,  his  poise,  his  love  of  books,  or  his  good  breed- 
ing. His  prescience  as  a  statesman  preserved  that  which 
he  had  won  by  aggressive  attacks  upon  degeneracy  and 
vice.  And  throughout  life  he  readily  yielded  to  truths 
hitherto  neglected,  or  to  aught  else  when  refusal  to  yield 
would  have  been  less  than  right  or  rational. 

Although  his  conversion  was  beyond  doubt,  he  repeatedly 
returned  to  it,  allowing  neither  foregone  conclusions  nor 
deference  to  pious  opinion  to  check  his  constant  scrutiny 
of  the  basis  of  his  assurance.  In  many  of  his  confessions 
one  knows  not  whether  the  feeling  is  deeper  than  the  reflec- 
tion, or  the  reflection  deeper  than  the  feeling.  If  some  of 
his  instinctive  recognitions  of  God  were  in  their  nature  mys- 
tical rather  than  intellectual,  it  would  be  difficult  to  overesti- 
mate the  corrective  value  of  such  a  religion  of  the  heart 
when  contrasted  with  that  latitudinarianism  which  denied 
the  possibility  of  Wesley's  transfer  into  the  boundless  realm 
of  the  living,  moving,  progressive  Spirit  who  led  him  into 
light,  wisdom,  and  truth;  into  the  very  presence  and  per- 
suasion of  the  Soul  of  souls.  A  sense  of  spiritual  union 
springing  from  his  voluntary  surrender  to  Christ  was 
strengthened  by  grave  and  habitual  meditation,  until  he 
reached  the  plane  where  contradictions  cease.  Pondering 
the  highest  he  knew  till  it  became  more  than  his  ideal,  he 
appropriated  it  as  a  part  of  himself,  thus  blending  his  life 
with  the  life  everlasting  that  he  might  do  God's  work  in  the 
world. 


JOHN   WESLEY  369 

Although  he  was  compelled  to  act  without  her  approval, 
and,  indeed,  in  the  face  of  her  undeserved  rebuke,  the 
Anglican  Church  was  always  dear  to  him,  and  the  liturgi- 
cal forms  of  her  worship  harmonized  with  his  sense  of 
order  and  of  the  beauty  of  holiness.  That  by  her  opposi- 
tion she  lost  the  greatest  opportunity  she  has  yet  had  to 
strengthen  her  ranks  and  become  a  truly  national  church 
is  beyond  question ;  but  this  loss  was  compensated  by  the 
gains  to  the  Kingdom  of  God  which  resulted  from  Wesley's 
independence  of  ecclesiasticism.  Dr.  Joseph  Beaumont,  in 
speaking  of  his  attitude  toward  the  Establishment,  likened 
it  to  that  of  a  strong  rower  who  looks  one  way  while  every 
stroke  of  the  oar  propels  him  in  the  opposite  direction. 
Further  light  is  cast  upon  Wesley's  relations  to  Anglicanism 
by  excerpts  given  here  from  a  letter,  hitherto  unpublished  as 
fully  as  here,  written  by  Dr.  Adam  Clarke  to  Mr.  Humphrey 
Sandwith,  and  dated  from  Bridlington,  on  October  1,  1832  :  — 

"  I  have  been  a  preacher  in  the  Methodist  Connexion  more 
than  half  a  century:  and  have  been  a  travelling  Preacher 
47  years,  and  I  ever  found  many  people  in  most  places  of 
the  Connexion  very  uneasy  at  not  having  the  Sacrament 
of  the  Lord's  Supper  administered  in  our  own  Chapels,  by 
our  own  Preachers.  Mr.  J.  Wesley  mildly  recommended  the 
people  to  go  to  the  Church  and  Sacrament.  Mr.  C.  Wesley 
threatened  them  with  damnation,  if  they  did  not :  for  even 
in  very  early  times  the  contrary  disposition  appeared  in 
many  Societies.  In  1783,  at  the  Bristol  Conference  where 
I  was  admitted  into  full  Connexion,  I  heard  Mr.  Charles 
Wesley  preach  in  Temple  Church,  on  Matt.  xi.  5.  'The 
blind  receive  their  sight,  and  the  lame  walk,'  etc.,  in  which 
Discourse,  and  on  that  part,  the  lame  tvalk,  he  spoke  the  fol- 
lowing words,  which  I  shall  never  forget :  —  *  My  brethren, 
the  lame  man,  that  was  healed  by  Peter  and  John  at  the 
beautiful  gate  of  the  Temple  went  into  the  Temple  with 
the  Apostles  to  worship  God  :  —  They  who  are  healed  under 
the  ministry  of  my  Brother  and  myself,  go  with  us  into  the 
2b 


370      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

Church  :  —  Abide  in  the  Church  —  if  you  leave  the  Church, 
God  will  leave  you,  or  you  will  go  halting  all  the  days  of  your 
life,  should  you  even  get  to  heaven  at  last :  —  but  abide  in 
the  good  old  Ship,  and  some  on  Boards,  and  some  on  broken 
pieces  of  the  Ship,  and  you'll  all  get  safe  to  Land.'  On 
this  I  make  no  comment. 


It  was  only  when  the  cry  became  universal,  and  the  people 
were  in  danger  of  being  everywhere  divided  or  scattered, 
and  a  party  of  Rich  men,  principally  Trustees  in  the  Con- 
nexion, rose  up  to  prevent  any  concessions  to  be  made  to 
the  people,  and  it  was  too  evident,  that  those  very  men  aimed 
not  only,  as  they  professed,  to  keep  the  people  to  the  Church, 
but  to  rule  them  and  the  Preachers  too,  that  the  Preachers  in 
general  declared  in  behalf  of  the  Societies;  and  then,  and 
not  till  then,  did  I  argue  in  their  behalf. 


At  the  London  Conference,  in  1788,  Dr.  Coke,  thinking  we 
were  in  danger  of  losing  our  people,  and  that  our  avowed 
connexion  with  the  Church  hindered  our  work,  proposed  in 
Conference,  that  'the  whole  Methodist  Body  should  make  a 
formal  separation  from  the  Church.'  In  this  Dr.  Coke  was 
not  only  earnest,  but  vehement.  It  was  stated,  'that  it  was 
impossible  to  keep  up  the  Connexion  with  it,  that  all  the 
Churches  in  the  nation  could  not  accommodate  our  Congre- 
gations, nor  the  Communion  Tables  receive  the  members 
of  our  Societies,  as  Communicants ;  and  that  as  they  gen- 
erally called  out  for  the  Sacrament  from  the  hands  of  their 
own  Preachers,  they  should  have  it,'  etc.  After  the  Doctor 
had  said  what  he  wished  at  the  time  Mr.  Wesley  rose  up  and 
with  great  calmness  said :  — '  Dr.  Coke  would  tear  all  from  top 
to  bottom  —  I  will  not  tear,  but  unstitch.'  He  had  begun 
to  unstitch.  Witness  the  ordination  for  America  and  for 
Scotland  and  his  calling  Mr.  Myles  tHe~year~after  to  come 


JOHN   WESLEY  371 

within  the  rails  of  the  communion-place  in  Dublin,  to  assist 
him  by  giving  the  Cup! —  It  has  been  said,  'the  members  of 
our  Societies  were  taken  out  of  the  Church,  and  in  forming 
Societies  out  of  its  members,  we  made  a  Schism  in  the  Church.' 
This  is  a  total  mistake.  I  know  well  what  has  been,  and 
what  is  the  composition  of  our  Societies.  Our  Societies 
were  formed  from  those,  who  were  wandering  upon  the  dark 
mountains,  that  belonged  to  no  Christian  Church;  but  were 
awakened  by  the  preaching  of  the  Methodists,  who  had 
pursued  them  through  the  wilderness  of  this  world  to  the 
High-ways  and  the  Hedges,  —  to  the  Markets  and  the 
Fairs,  —  to  the  Hills  and  Dales,  —  who  set  up  the  Standard 
of  the  Cross  in  the  Streets  and  Lanes  of  the  Cities,  in  the 
Villages,  in  Barns,  and  Farmers'  Kitchens,  etc.  —  and  all 
this  in  such  a  way,  and  to  such  an  extent,  as  never  had  been 
done  before,  since  the  Apostolic  age.  They  threw  their 
drag-net  into  the  troubled  ocean  of  irreligious  Society,  and 
brought  to  shore  both  bad  and  good :  and  the  very  best  of 
them  needed  the  salvation  of  God  :  and  out  of  those,  who  in 
general  had  no  Christian  Communion  with  any  Church 
were  formed  by  the  mighty  power  of  the  God  of  all  grace 
the  Methodists'  Societies.  Thus  they  travelled  into  the 
wilderness,  and  brought  back  the  stray  sheep,  that,  had  it 
not  been  for  their  endeavours,  would  in  all  likelihood  have 
perished  on  the  Dark  Mountains.  Our  Founders  were 
Ministers  of  the  Established  Church,  —  but  what  good  did 
they  do  as  Ministers  in  that  Church  ?  —  They  were  obliged 
to  go  over  its  pale,  in  order  to  reach  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house 
of  Israel.  Had  they  continued  regular  in  that  Church, 
Methodism  would  not  now  be  found  in  our  ecclesiastical 
vocabulary.  And  since  we,  as  a  Body,  threw  aside  the 
trammels  of  our  prejudices,  God  has  doubly,  trebly  blessed 
us  in  our  work."  ^ 
Such  was  the  attitude  of  Wesley  when  he  stood  on  the 

*  The  extracts  are  inserted  here  by  the  kind  permission  of  the  Rev.  W.  L. 
Watkinson,  D.D.,  who  is  the  owner  of  the  letter. 


>^ 


372      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

verge  of  the  grave.  The  cry  for  honorable  independence 
came  from  an  influential  minority  of  his  preachers  who  re- 
sented the  indignities  to  which  they  were  subjected  and  the 
anomalous  position  in  which  they  were  expected  to  do  their 
work,  but  their  leader's  attachment  to  Anglicanism  for  a 
time  prevented  the  fulfillment  of  their  desires.  Whether 
or  not  their  proposals  would  have  secured  the  stability  and 
prosperity  of  the  infant  Church  is  still  an  open  question. 
Those  who  hold  that  its  Founder  made  the  most  intelligent 
and  timely  provision  possible  have  to  meet  the  fact  that  a 
large  minority  of  the  Methodists  enrolled  in  Great  Britain 
are  outside  Wesleyanism,  principally  because  of  schisms 
concerning  the  vexed  questions  of  ministerial  authority 
and  relevant  issues.  Doctrinal  difficulties  were  a  negligible 
quantity  in  these  disputes,  which,  whatever  their  causes, 
have  greatly  hindered  Methodism.  Its  more  progressive 
members  sometimes  formulated  their  claims  regardless  of 
evidence  and  experience;  the  conservatives  clung  to  the 
status  quo  with  unwise  persistence ;  the  consequences  were 
lamentable  accusations  and  disruptions.  Many  of  the  de- 
mands for  advanced  legislation  which  formerly  aroused 
intense  opposition  have  since  been  granted  by  the  parent 
body,  whose  adjustment  of  clerical  and  lay  authority  has 
only  been  obtained  after  many  years  of  cautious  experiment. 
The  growth  of  Methodism  in  the  United  States,  where  it 
was  not  overshadowed  by  a  State  Church,  afforded  no 
sufficient  argument  for  a  like  policy  in  Britain,  where  Wesley's 
revered  name  and  unique  position  deferred  the  advantages 
afterwards  secured  at  considerable  cost. 

His_  rule,  while  not  perfect,  was  unblemished  by  the 
caprice,  selfishness,  or  tyranny  which  have  generally  accom- 
panied the  sense  of  unrestrained  power,  and  made  so  many 
great  men  bad  men.  Never  since  the  eras  when  the  Church 
held  sway  over  every  action  has  any  ecclesiastic  possessed  a 
more  complete  autocracy,  or  more  straitly  guarded  it  as  a 
trust  deposited  with  him  by  God  for  the  welfare  of  the  people. 


JOHN   WESLEY  373 

Sir  Leslie  Stephen  complains  of  his  disagreeable  temper, 
but  there  are  surprisingly  few  instances  of  its  exhibition. 
On  the  contrary,  he  knew  how  to  cloak  his  occasional  severity 
and  arbitrariness  with  an  urbane  or  a  patriarchal  manner. 
Audacity  balanced  by  caution,  firmness  vailed  by  benevo- 
lence, inflexibility  compensated  by  goodness,  and  a  courage 
that  revealed,  when  necessary,  the  fire  beneath  his  calm  ex- 
terior, were  the  chief  features  of  his  administrative  capacity_j^ 

Some  accounts  of  his  unfortimata_inarriage  with  Mrs.  j 
Vazeille  have  not  been  entirely  just  to  that  lady,  a  dis-  ( 
passionate  view  of  whose  conduct  shows  her  to  have  been  a 
much  abused  woman,  who  suffered  more  severely  than  her 
husband.  We&Jey,  notwithstanding  the  best  intentions,  did 
not  properly  jdischarge  the  duties  of  married  life,  nor  devote 
himself  to  Mrs.  Wesley  with  the  ardor  he  showed  for  his 
mission.  He  was  as  mistaken  in  his  conception  of  her  as 
she  was  in  her  jealousies  of  him;  and  his  bearing  toward 
other  women,  while  morally  blameless,  was  indiscreet  in  view 
of  her  extreme  sensitiveness.  Wrapped  a  little  too  exclusively 
in  his  rectitude,  he  addressed  her  in  terms  which  added  fuel 
to  the  flame  of  her  anger,  and  which  were  better  suited  to  a 
rebellious  preacher  than  to  a  wife  who  indulged  the  morbid 
susceptibilities  of  her  ill-regulated  heart.  In  after  years 
he  told  Henry  Moore  that  the  schooling  of  sorrow  which  his 
marriage  brought  to  him  had  been  overruled  for  good,  since 
if  Mrs.  Wesley  had  been  a  better  wife,  he  might  by  seeking 
to  please  her  have  proved  unfaithful  to  his  calling. 

The  light  and  shade  of  ordinary  existence  were  as 
foreign  to  Wesley  as  the  joys  of  domestic  life.  He  had  to 
yield  to  a  pressure  from  all  sides  which  injured  his  more 
human  qualities.  His  declaration  that  he  dared  no  more 
fret  than  curse  indicated  a  self-consciousness  which  was  also 
shown  in  his  lack  of  humor,  and  one  cannot  avoid  a  feeling 
of  thankfulness  that  at  intervals  he  let  himself  go  and 
found  relief.  Yet  the  English  people,  however  racy  in 
their  exchanges,  distrust  a  jocular  clergyman;    and  Wesley 


lis      J 


374   THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

could  never  have  gained  their  confidence  had  he  scintillated 
rather  than  shone.  The  classes  to  which  he  chiefly  appealed 
highly  esteemed  seriousness  in  the  ministerial  character; 
they  would  only  have  been  puzzled  by  such  brilliant  by-play 
in  Wesley  as  Sydney  Smith  indulged,  and  doubtless  would 
have  resented  it.  Dr.  Johnson,  craving  further  conversa- 
tion with  Wesley,  and  failing  to  obtain  it,  growled  about  his 
absorption  in  his  work.  He  abstained  from  social  inter- 
course, even  when  it  was  as  an  arch  through  which 

"Gleamed  the  untravelled  world," 

and  he  was  openly  bored  by  the  aristocratic  circles  which 
Whitefield  admired  and  courted.  When  he  chose,  he  could 
be  a  most  delightful  companion,  but  his  steadfast  gaze  was 
on  the  religious  needs  of  the  race,  and  on 

"...  The  whole  of  the  world's  tears, 
And  all  the  trouble  of  her  labouring  ships. 
And  all  the  trouble  of  her  myriad  years." 

Like  St.  Paul  at  Athens,  he  passed,  not  unheeding,  yet  un- 
moved, through  scenes  which  would  have  enchained  a  lesser 
spirit.  This  aloofness  injured  his  followers  more  than  it  in- 
jured him,  for  while  he  regarded  some  things  as  secular  which 
in  essence  were  sacred  enough,  he  was  always  a  liberal  thinker 
and  a  sympathetic  student  of  men  and  affairs. 

He  lacked  the  boldness  ofjmagination  which  could  frame 
philosophical  or  theological  hypotheses  and  generalizations^ 
His  intellect  was  of  the  prosaical  sort,  uninfluenced  by  those 
higher  but  more  hazardous  motions  which  characterized  his 
contemporary,  Jonathan  Edwards.  His  sentimentalism  and 
taste  for  the  roniantic,  like  his  drift  toward  Moravian  mysti- 
cism, were  finally  mastered  by  his  will  and  his  reason.  A 
feeling  which  did  not  evince  itself  in  action  counted  for 
little :  he  measured  mental  and  moral  processes  by  their 
results  in  conduct;  the  only  indications  of  a  change  of 
heart  he  felt  free  to  accept  were  a  sensible  regeneration  and 


JOHN   WESLEY  375 

its  outward  evidence  in  purity  of  life  and  conversation.  He 
perceived  that  in  the  great  matters  of  existence  people  are 
not  convinced  by  argument.  Good  logic  may  remove  diffi- 
culties which  impede  belief,  but  faith  has  its  origin  in  a 
moral  temper,  and  when  this  is  absent  the  most  cogent 
dialectics  are  wasted.  Intellectual  operations  have  never 
been  readily  adjusted  to  those  religious  impulses,  which, 
though  they  remain  among  the  deeper  mysteries  of  human 
being,  have  yet  been  powerful  enough  to  transform  its  en- 
tire character,  and  direct  it  into  new  channels.  Thus,  while 
there  is  a  Wesleyan  theology,  a  Wesleyan  hymnology,  and  a 
Wesleyan  type  of  religious  experience,  there  is  no  Wesleyan 
philosophy.  His  system  was  never  endangered  by  such 
streams  of  metaphysical  speculation  as  flowed  in  Calvinism. 
For  this  and  lesser  reasons  certain  authors  have  supported 
the  charges  of  his  earlier  opponents  that  Wesley  swung  the 
pendulum  from  the  intellectual  to  the  emotional  side  of 
Christianity.  What  he  really  did  was  to  demonstrate  the 
values  of  spiritual  experience  to  such  a  degree  that  philosophy 
was  compelled  to  acknowledge  them.  That  he  did  this  un- 
wittingly does  not  detract  from  its  importance,  and  the 
latest  modern  thought  has  confessed  that  his  movement 
re-enthroned  a  religious  consciousness  which  must  be  recog- 
nized and  respected. 

His  Journal  contains  many  allusions  to  literature  in 
general,  with  reflections  and  comments  upon  particular  works 
of  numerous  authors,  as  for  example,  Machiavelli's  "Prince," 
of  which  he  observes  that  it  engendered  in  European  govern- 
ment universal  enmity  and  strife,  its  policies  being  bound 
by  no  moral  obligation  to  God  or  man,  and  thriving  on 
destruction.  Mandeville's  "Fable  of  the  Bees,"  a  very 
shrewd  and  advanced  commentary  on  national  hypocrisies, 
which  asserted  that  private  vices  were  public  virtues,  was 
even  more  abandoned  than  "The  Prince."  Marcus  Aurelius 
was  "  one  of  those  many  who  shall  come  from  the  East  and 
the    West    and    sit  down    with   Abraham,   while    nominal 


376      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

Christians  are  shut  out."  Rousseau  was  "a  shallow  yet 
supercilious  infidel,  two  degrees  below  Voltaire."  Ignatius 
Loyola,  whose  career  he  studied  with  care,  was  "surely 
one  of  the  greatest  of  men  that  was  ever  engaged  in  the 
support  of  so  bad  a  cause,"  one  who  set  out  "with  a  full 
persuasion  that  he  might  use  guile  to  promote  .  .  .  the 
interests  of  his  Church,  and  acted  in  all  things  consistent 
with  his  principles."  Of  the  Puritans  he  wrote,  "I  stand  in 
amaze,  first,  at  the  execrable  spirit  of  persecution  which 
drove  these  venerable  men  out  of  the  Church,  and  with 
which  Queen  Elizabeth's  clergy  were  as  deeply  tinctured  as 
ever  Queen  Mary's  were  :  secondly,  at  the  weakness  of  those 
holy  confessors,  many  of  whom  spent  so  much  of  their  time 
and  strength  in  disputing  about  surplices  and  hoods  or 
kneeling  at  the  Lord's  Supper."  There  were  deeper  ele- 
ments in  the  Puritan  controversy  than  are  indicated  by  this 
criticism,  which  is,  however,  admissible  so  far  as  it  goes. 
On  reading  Richard  Baxter's  "History  of  the  Councils," 
he  vigorously  denounced  their  evil  side :  "  How  has  one 
Council  been  perpetually  cursing  another,  and  delivering 
all  over  to  Satan,  whether  predecessors  or  contemporaries, 
though  generally  trifling,  sometimes  false  and  frequently 
unintelligible  and  self-contradictory?" 

His_judgments  were  not  always  within  the  mark,  yet 
the  desire  to  Ee^usfffiade  him  a^re-ef  the-good  iiLdisputing 
sectarieSj^  whose  religious  life  was  a  unity  at  its  source. 
Anglican,  Nonconformist,  and  even  Roman  Catholic  divines, 
theologians,  and  exegetes  shared  in  the  approval  he  generously 
bestowed  where  he  deemed  it  deserved.  In  art,  although 
he  saw  the  weakness  of  design  in  the  great  cartoons  of 
Raphael,  his  opinions  were  negligible.  Music  was  always 
his  delight,  especially  the  oratorio,  in  which  England  has 
excelled.  In  his  later  years  he  loved  to  linger  among  the 
monuments  of  Westminster  Abbey,  where  his  own  has  since 
received  its  place. 
I    Wesley  could  not  be  called  a  great  scholar,  in  the  present 


JOHN   WESLEY  377 

technical  sense  of  the  term,  although  the  University  training 
he  received,  which  was  linked  with  the  names  of  such  men  as 
Blackstone,  the  legal  commentator,  Lowth,  the  lecturer  on 
Isaiah,  the  Wartons,  especially  Thomas,  who  was  poet 
laureate,  Addison,  and  Dr.  Johnson,  can  be  truly  said 
to  have  left  its  mark  on  England.  Oxford's  thinkers  of  the 
eighteenth  century  acquiesced  in  the  supremacy  of  Aristotle, 
and  contributed  little  to  the  progress  of  organized  or  meta- 
physical inquiry.  Erudition  was  constantly  endangered  by 
the  acerbities  of  political  partisanship,  and  few  of  the  dons 
shared  in  the  rapid  expansion  of  learning  which  characterized 
their  rivals  at  Cambridge.  Alexander  Kriox  states,  however, 
that  Wesley  had  an  attachment  to  the  English  Platonists, 
including  Taylor,  Smith,  Cudworth,  Worthington,  and 
Lucas.  His  life  of  ceaseless  journeyings  and  labors  gave 
him  little  time  for  literary  interests,  and  it  is  greatly  to  his 
credit  that  he  read  as  widely  and  wrote  as  accurately  as  he 
did.  His  Journal,  which  is  among  the  first  half  dozen  works 
of  the  era,  shows  the  difficulties  under  which  he  pursued 
his  studies.  Neither  tempestuous  winds  nor  dripping  skies, 
summer  heat  nor  winter  cold,  breakdowns  on  the  road  nor 
impassable  highways,  threatening  mobs  nor  the  necessities 
of  his  Societies,  could  restrain  his  avidity  for  books,  and, 
above  all,  for  the  One  Book  with  which  he  was  most  con- 
versant. Blessed  with  a  compact  and  sinewy  frame,  and 
an  equable  temperament,  he  neither  hurried  nor  chafed, 
nor  did  he  suffer  any  reaction  from  his  toils.  The  anxieties 
which  corrode  the  lives  of  those  who  wear  themselves  out 
in  battling  for  temporalities  were  unknown  to  him :  the 
inspiration  of  his  aims  sustained  him  against  every  cir- 
cumstance. During  eighty-eight  years  he  lost  but  one 
night's  sleep,  and  at  all  times  his  composure  enabled  him 
to  withdraw  within  himself.  His  seat  in  the  saddle  or  the 
chaise  became  a  cloister  where  he  read  and  meditated, 
regardless  of  his  surroundings. 
There  he  planned  his  sermons  and  writings  and  reprints 


378      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

of  other  men's  works,  which  had  an  enormous  circulation 
and  influence.  The  magazine  which  he  estabhshed  in  1778 
is  now  the  oldest  periodical  of  its  kind  in  Great  Britain.  The 
entire  list  of  his  publications  would  form  a  volume  in  itself, 
and  a  glance  at  their  contents  enables  one  to  realize  the 
tireless  energy  and  skill  of  the  man.  They  ranged  from  the 
standard  doctrines  of  a  growing  church  to  the  quaint  pre- 
scriptions of  "Primitive  Physic,"  and  most  of  them  were 
eagerly  accepted  and  practised  by  the  multitudes  to  whom  his 
word  was  law.  His  style  was  decidedly  inferior  to  that  of 
Newman  and  other  masters :  he  did  not  have  nor  did  he 
desire  to  have  the  subtleties  of  thought  and  expression 
which  were  the  great  Tractarian's.  In  answer  to  the  query, 
"What  is  it  that  constitutes  a  good  style?"  he  said,  "I 
never  think  of  it  at  all,  but  just  set  down  the  words  that 
come  first.  Only  when  I  transcribe  anything  for  the  press, 
then  I  think  it  my  duty  to  see  that  every  phrase  be  clear, 
pure,  proper,  and  easy.  Conciseness,  which  is  now  as  it 
were  natural  to  me,  brings  quantum  sufficit  of  strength."  ^ 
Sir  Leslie  Stephen  observes,  "He  shows  remarkable  literary 
power ;  but  we  feel  that  his  writings  are  means  to  a  direct 
practical  end,  rather  than  valuable  in  themselves,  either  in 
form  or  substance.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  any  letters 
more  direct,  forcible,  and  pithy  in  expression.  .  .  .  The 
compression  gives  emphasis  and  never  causes  confusion."  ^ 
In  summary,  if  culture  consists  in  knowing  much  of  the 
jbest  that  has  been  thought  and  said,  in  breadth  of  outlook 
land  intellectual  sympathy,  then  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
/Wesley  was  a  cultured  man.  Pagan  masters,  heretics  of 
the  ancient  Church,  and  "excellent  Unitarians,"  like  Thomas 
Firmin,  whose  biography  he  commended  to  his  followers, 
were  included  in  his  appreciative  review.  As  early  as  1745 
he  issued  a  letter  to  his  people  which  has  a  message  for  them 
to-day.     "  Have  a  care  of  anger,  dislike  or  contempt  toward 

'  L.  Tyerman :   "Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley"  ;   Vol.  Ill,  p.  657. 
^  "English  Thought  in  the  Eighteenth  Century"  ;   Vol.  II,  p.  409. 


JOHN   WESLEY  379 

those  whose  opinions  differ  from  yours.  You  are  daily 
accused  of  this  (and  indeed  what  is  it  where  you  are  not 
accused?),  but  beware  of  giving  any  ground  for  such  accusa- 
tion. Condemn  no  man  for  not  thinking  as  you  think.  Let 
every  one  enjoy  the  full  and  free  liberty  of  thinking  for  him- 
self. Let  every  man  use  his  own  judgment,  since  every 
man  must  give  an  account  of  himself  to  God.  Abhor  every 
approach,  in  any  kind  or  degree,  to  the  spirit  of  persecution. 
If  you  cannot  reason  or  persuade  a  man  into  truth,  never 
attempt  to  force  him  into  it.  If  love  will  not  compel  him  to 
come  in,  leave  him  to  God,  the  Judge  of  all."  "The  Meth- 
odists," he  said  at  another  time,  "do  not  impose,  in  order 
to  the  admission  of  persons  to  their  Society,  any  opinions 
whatsoever.  Let  them  hold  particular  or  general  redemp- 
tion, absolute  or  conditional  decrees ;  let  them  be  Church- 
men or  Dissenters,  Presbyterians  or  Independents,  it  is  no 
obstacle.  Let  them  choose  one  mode  of  baptism,  it  is  no 
bar  to  their  admission.  The  Presbyterian  may  be  a  Presby- 
terian still ;  the  Independent  or  Anabaptist  use  his  own 
mode  of  worship.  So  may  the  Quaker,  and  none  will  con- 
tend with  him  about  it.  They  think  and  let  think.  One 
condition  and  one  only  is  required  —  a  real  desire  to  save 
their  soul.  Where  this  is,  it  is  enough ;  they  desire  no  more ; 
they  lay  stress  upon  nothing  else;  they  ask  only,  'Is  thy 
heart  therein  as  my  heart?  If  it  be,  give  me  thy  hand.'" 
He  was  alive  to  the  defects  of  many  who  make  much  of 
religious  feeling  or  strict  dogmatic  statements,  yet  are 
lamentably  deficient  in  Christian  charity.  His  own  catho- 
licity was  accompanied  by  a  chivalrous  bearing  towards 
opponents,  to  be  ascribed,  not  to  the  indifference  which 
treats  doctrines  and  creeds  as  superfluous,  but  to  his  certi- 
tude concerning  what  he  held  as  of  faith,  and  to  the  more 
perfect  love  which  casts  out  fear.  The  character  such  faith 
and  love  create  is  of  far  more  importance  than  intellec- 
tual gifts.  Too  often  highly  rationalized  convictions  are 
found  in  men  of  weak  purpose  or  low  motive,  and  though 


380      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

opinions  are  an  important  part  of  character,  and  never 
more  so  than  when  they  affect  sacred  matters,  they  should 
not  be  confused  with  it. 

While  his  complex  personality  was  not  faultless,  two 
things  were  never  possible  for  Wesley:  to  betray  even 
for  a  moment  his  religious  vocation,  or  to  hesitate  at  any 
sacrifice  in  its  behalf.  No  one  could  be  less  careful  of  his 
own  interests ;  he  despised  mercenary  considerations,  and 
the  end  of  life  found  him  as  poor  as  he  was  at  his  birth. 
The  narrowing  lust  of  gold  was  abolished  in  him  by  his 
literal  compliance  with  the  word  of  the  Master,  a  word 
which  has  always  been  one  of  the  very  last  His  followers 
are  willing  to  apply  to  themselves.  Wesley  met  it  with 
thoroughness  by  giving  away  everything  he  had,  and  on  his 
own  showing  he  never  possessed  a  hundred  pounds  which  he 
« could  call  his  own.     He  brought  himself  and  his  followers 

(within  the  divine  injunction,  "If  thou  wouldest  be  perfect, 
go,  sell  that  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the  poor;"  and  his 
latest  discourses  contain  frequent  warnings  against  the 
demoralization  of  unconsecrated  wealth.  This  is  but  one, 
and  yet  how  sufficient  an  illustration  of  that  profoundly  re- 
ligious spirit  which  dictated  his  affairs  and  sought  through 
them  to  do  the  Highest  Will.  During  a  long  and  exalted, 
career,  of  which  he  himself  was  the  straitest  censor,  he' 
occupied  a  height  on  which  the  light  was  always  beating ; 
content  to  be  an  inexplicable  mystery  to  those  who,  actuated 
by  a  less  devout  or  comprehensive  temper,  shared  neither 
his  convictions  nor  his  experiences,  and  to  fulfill  the  Apostle's 
ideal,  "I  live,  yet  not  I,  Christ  liveth  in  me."  He  believed 
that  God,  in  assuming  human  flesh,  living  sinlessly  in  its 
limitations,  and  dying  for  sinners,  had  effected  that  recon- 
ciliation between  Himself  and  man  which  is  the  greatest 
achievement  in  moral  history.  This  doctrine  of  the  Person 
of  our  Lord  he  unfeignedly  accepted ;  this,  and  this  alone, 
was  for  him  the  unquestioned  basis  of  his  confidence  and  joy. 
He  neither  modified  nor  minimized  it.     It  was  "the  creedi 


JOHN   WESLEY  381 

of  creeds,  involved  in,  and  arising  out  of,  the  work  of  works." 
The  Church  no  less  than  the  individual  lived  in  and  by  its 
central  truth ;  the  collapse  of  religion  quickly  followed  its 
abandonment.  In  that  faith  is  to  be  found  the  intrinsic 
explanation  of  Wesley's  moral  greatness,  and  the  devotion 
it  inspired  has  always  been  the  salient  characteristic  of 
those,  who,  like  him,  have  attained  holiness  in  the  patience 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

No  spirit  shines  by  its  own  radiance,  and  none  can  trans- 
mit more  light  than  its  purity  enables  it  to  receive.  The 
strength  and  range  of  Wesley's  illumination  reflect  the 
closeness  of  his  fellowship  with  the  Light  of  lights.  The 
faith  and  works  of  the  saint,  the  evangelist,  the  statesman, 
the  theologian,  and  the  builder  of  the  Church  were  derived 
directly  from  his  risen  Lord.  Had  Christ  entered  the  room 
in  Aldersgate  Street  as  He  did  that  other  room  in  Jerusalem, 
visible  to  the  worshiping  gaze  of  His  disciples,  and  silencing 
the  doubts  of  Thomas,  Wesley  could  not  have  left  it  more 
determined  to  follow  Him  in  His  ministry  of  mercy  and 
redemption.  From  that  moment  he  was  borne  upward 
and  onward  by  a  supreme  affection  to  freedom  and  to  power 
as  the  anointed  servant  of  his  century  and  of  the  nations. 
As  it  is  the  function  of  fire  to  give  light  and  warmth,  so  it 
was  the  function  of  his  new-found  love  to  spread  the  sense  of 
love.  His  conversion  discovered  him  an  ecclesiastic  ensnared 
in  legalisms ;  it  made  him  the  greatest  prophet  and  evan- 
gelist the  English-speaking  people  have  known.  Everything 
lived  at  his  touch,  and  as  an  agent  of  religious  revolution 
he  earned  the  praise  and  reverence  of  those  who  imitated 
his  example,  whether  in  his  own  or  in  other  communions. 

Undeterred  by  the  appalling  contrasts  between  his  tastes 
and  habits  and  those  of  the  degraded  masses,  he  entered  the 
dreary  haunts  of  physical  and  moral  destitution,  a  spiritual 
Archimedes,  who  had  found  his  leverage  and  proposed  to 
upraise  the  lost  and  the  abandoned,  not  only  to  decency, 
but  to  holiness.     He  foresaw,  gathered  from  these  waste 


382      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

places,  an  ideal  Church  of  regenerated  souls,  broadly  and 
securely  based  on  love  and  social  duty.  Toward  that  divine 
society  the  faith  of  mankind  is  ever  steadily  growing,  a 
society  not  of  antagonisms,  but  of  concord,  not  of  artificial 
separation,  but  of  spiritual  unity  —  the  Bride  for  whose 
coming  her  Heavenly  Bridegroom  waits. 

If  Wesley  presented  an  extraordinary  combination  of 
characteristics  seldom  found  in  any  individual,  it  is  also  of 
the  first  importance  to  remember  that,  unlike  strong  men  in 
other  spheres,  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  carrying  out  his  own 
ideas.  The  sequence  of  events  placed  him  in  the  unique 
position  for  which  his  qualities  were  exactly  fitted  ;  even  the 
contradictions  of  his  age  enlarged  his  capacity  for  arousing 
and  handling  passional  forces  that  previously  had  no  outlet 
in  religion.  He  made  such  diligent  use  of  his  entire  equip- 
ment that  the  Church  which  was  his  own  embodiment  be- 
came to  Britain  and  America  the  purveyor  of  his  affection, 
his  courage,  his  prudence,  his  detestation  of  sin,  his  love  of 
the  sinner,  and  his  faith  in  a  Higher  Power.  Memory  fre- 
quently tells  a  tale  almost  as  flattering  as  that  of  hope,  but 
few  characters  appear  in  the  teeming  fields  of  retrospect 
which  justify  its  optimism  more  than  does  that  of  Wesley. 
Happy  is  the  nation  which  gave  him  to  the  highest  possible 
service.  Incalculable  are  the  obligations  North  America  and 
the  world  at  large  owe  her  for  such  a  gift.  Blessed  are  the 
people  in  whose  midst  he  moved,  vigorous  without  vehemence, 
neither  loud  nor  labored,  but  as  a  fixed  star  of  truth  and 
goodness,  a  pattern  of  private  excellence  and  public  virtue. 

And  while  he  is  regarded  with  ever  deepening  reverence 
and  gratitude,  not  the  least  cause  for  thankfulness  is  the  assur- 
ance that  He  who  sent  him  forth  as  the  angel  of  the  churches, 
to  "turn  the  hearts  of  the  fathers  to  the  children,  and  the 
disobedient  to  walk  in  the  wisdom  of  the  just ;  to  make 
ready  for  the  Lord  a  people  prepared  for  Him,"  can  and  will, 
in  His  infinite  goodness,  grant  His  Israel  another  prince 
who  shall  continue  Wesley's  work. 


JOHN  WESLEY 


383 


IMPORTANT  DATES   IN   WESLEY'S   LIFE 

1725  Ordained  Deacon. 

1726  Elected  Fellow  of  Lincoln  College. 

1727  Degree  of  M.A.  conferred  at  Oxford,  February  14. 
1727-28  Curate  at  Epworth  and  Wroote. 

1729-35    Tutor  at  Oxford. 

1736-38     Georgia,  America. 

1739-91     Itinerated  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland. 

Presided  at  the  following  Conferences : 


1744 

London 

1760 

Bristol 

1776 

London 

1745 

Bristol 

1761 

London 

1777 

Bristol 

1746 

Bristol 

1762 

Leeds 

1778 

Leeds 

1747 

London 

1763 

London 

1779 

London 

1748 

Bristol 

1764 

Bristol 

1780 

Bristol 

1749 

London 

1765 

Manchester 

1781 

Leeds 

1750 

Bristol 

1766 

Leeds 

1782 

London 

1751 

Bristol 

1767 

London 

1783 

Bristol 

1752 

Bristol 

1768 

Bristol 

1784 

Leeds 

1753 

Leeds 

1769 

Leeds 

1785 

London 

1854 

London 

1770 

London 

1786 

Bristol 

1755 

Leeds 

1771 

Bristol 

1787 

Manchester 

1756 

Bristol 

1772 

Leeds 

1788 

London 

1757 

London 

1773 

London 

1789 

Leeds 

1758 

Bristol 

1774 

Bristol 

1790 

Bristol 

1759 

London 

1775 

Leeds 

Born  at  Epworth,  June  28,  1703. 

Died  at  City  Road,  London,  March  2,  1791,  aged  88  years. 


384      THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

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Gregory,  J.  Robinson.     A  History  of  Methodism. 

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McCarthy,  Justin.     The  Four  Georges. 

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Telford,  John.     Life  of  Charles  Wesley. 

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BOOK   III 
JOHN    HENRY   NEWMAN 


AND 


THE   OXFORD   MOVEMENT   OF    1833-1845 


385 


And  when  the  stream 
Which  overflowed  the  soul  was  passed  away, 
A  consciousness  remained  th^t  it  had  left, 
Deposited  upon  the  silent  shore 
Of  memory,  images  and  precious  thoughts. 
That  shall  not  die,  and  cannot  be  destroyed. 

Wordsworth:  The  Excursion,  Book  VII. 


386 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  RENAISSANCE 


387 


Without  doubt,  if  religion  could  remain  in  the  pure  realm  of  sen- 
timent, it  would  be  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  science;  but  religion 
expresses  and  realises  itself  in  doctrines  and  institutions  which  cannot 
be  exempted  from  criticism.  These  doctrines,  which  bear  upon  their 
face  the  indelible  date  of  their  birth,  implicate  as  to  the  constitution 
of  the  universe,  the  history  of  the  early  ages  of  humanity,  the  origin 
and  nature  of  the  writings  in  the  canonical  Scriptures,  certain  notions 
borrowed  from  the  philosophy  and  general  science  of  a  bygone  period 
of  human  history.  To  force  them  upon  the  philosophy  and  science  of 
to-day  and  to-morrow  is  not  merely  to  commit  an  anachronism;  it  is 
to  enter  upon  a  desperate  conflict  in  which  the  authority  of  the  past  is 
defeated  in  advance. 

This  is  why  traditional  theology  appears  always  to  be  in  distress; 
one  by  one  she  abandons  her  ancient  positions,  having  been  unable  to 
find  security  or  a  basis  of  defence  in  any  of  them. 

AUGUSTE  SaBATIER. 


388 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE    NINETEENTH   CENTURY   RENAISSANCE 

Newman  and  the  Oxford  Movement  —  Historical  preparation  — 
Method  of  study  —  PoHtical  and  economic  antecedents  —  Dawn  of 
a  new  era  —  UtiHtarianism  —  Kant's  ethic  —  Lessing  —  Schleier- 
macher's  new  theology  —  Renaissance  of  science  —  Thomas  Carlyle 

—  Wordsworth  —  High  and  Low  Chm-ch  parties  —  Broad  Church 
thinkers  —  Coleridge's  Neoplatonism  —  Historical  and  Biblical  criti- 
cism—  MUman's  "History  of  the  Jews" — The  Cambridge  apostles 

—  Connop  Thirlwall  —  The  Oxford  Noetics  —  Richard  Whately  — 
Dr.  Lloyd  and  the  Prayer  Book  —  The  nation  Anti-Catholic  and  Eras- 
tian  —  The  Tractarian  reaction. 

No  modern  religious  revival  has  received  more  attention 
from  writers  of  literary  distinction  than  the  Oxford  Move- 
ment of  the  early  Victorian  period.  The  main  reason  for 
any  further  reference  to  it  is  that  each  succeeding  generation 
sees  it  from  a  different  point  of  view,  and  fashions  for  itself 
its  own  conceptions  of  the  issues  which  the  Movement  pro- 
jected into  art,  poetry,  ecclesiasticism,  theology,  and  religion. 
Moreover,  the  transcendent  personality  of  John  Henry 
Newman  is  inseparably  associated  with  that  particular  epoch 
in  Anglicanism,  and  has  been  a  perennial  source  of  attraction 
for  representatives  of  every  school  of  thought.  Dr.  A.  E. 
Abbott,  Thomas  Huxley,  James  Martineau,  Dean  Burgon, 
Dean  Church,  Thomas  Mozley,  Principal  Fairbairn,  Wilfred 
Ward,  and  Algernon  Cecil  are  distinguished  names  selected 
at  random  from  a  host  of  contemporaries  and  biographers 
who  have  been  identified  in  the  effort  to  shape  a  true  history 
both  of  the  Movement  itself  and  of  Newman  as  its  most 
commanding  figure.     His  pervasive  influence  upon  religion 

389 


390  THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

and  human  life  gave  rise  to  endless  controversies,  in  which 
friend  and  foe  were  alike  inspired  by  the  sentiment  that  he 
belonged  not  only  to  his  own  but  to  following  eras,  and  though 
no  longer  for  many  of  them  what  he  was  for  the  first  group  of 
followers  at  Oxford,  still  for  all,  and  for  those  who  should 
come  after  them,  one  of  the  spiritual  geniuses  of  the  race. 

The  memorable  year  of  1833  marked  an  awakening  in 
the  Established  Church  of  England,  due  in  large  measure 
to  the  conjunction  of  Newman  with  John  Keble  and  Richard 
Hurrell  Froude  at  Oriel  College.  That  awakening  trans- 
formed the  ecclesiastical  ideals  of  High  Anglicanism :  it 
manifestly  affected  the  worship  and  ritual  of  churches  derived 
from  Puritanism,  and  it  materially  modified  the  attitude 
of  the  British  nation  toward  the  Papacy.  Principles  and 
opinions  which  seemed  farthest  removed  from  the  actual 
surface  consciousness  of  Englishmen  were  recovered  and 
disseminated  with  astonishing  vigor  and  success.  Doctrines 
and  ordinances  that  had  become  well-nigh  obsolete  and  indeed 
diflficult  to  understand  were  quickened  by  the  interpretative 
imagination  of  this  new  cult  of  Catholic  Anglicans. 

The  principal  outlines  of  their  propaganda  have  long  been 
familiar,  and  although  its  legitimacy  has  been  seriously 
questioned,  those  who  write  to  prove  that  the  Oxford  Move- 
ment did  not  confer  lasting  blessings  upon  the  Church  as  a 
whole  waste  their  own  time  and  that  of  their  readers.  Yet 
at  its  worst  it  has  been  a  source  of  strife  and  schism  rather 
than  of  peace  and  unity  among  believers  in  one  Lord  and  one 
Gospel.  Its  advocates  were  prone  to  set  aside  things  evi- 
denced in  behalf  of  things  assumed.  Their  habit  of  ignoring 
realities  which  refused  to  be  accommodated  to  their  peculiar 
theories,  and  of  wrongly  distributing  cause  and  effect,  nar- 
rowed their  outlook,  confused  their  judgments,  and  cheap- 
ened their  estimates.  However,  the  one  important  matter 
about  the  sun  is  not  its  spots,  but  its  light  and  heat,  and 
although  there  were  extensive  discolorations  and  false  ap- 
pearances in  the  radiance  which  arose  at  Oxford  during  the 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  391 

last  century,  at  least  it  dispelled  the  indifference  and  doubt 
which  had  hitherto  thwarted  the  progress  of  the  Established 
Church. 

The  type  of  Anglicanism  to  which  Keble  and  Froude,  and, 
through  them,  Newman  belonged  was  not  common  either 
among  the  clergy  or  the  laity.  It  originated,  not  only  from 
the  days  of  Laud  and  the  Neoplatonists,  but  also  from  the 
teachings  of  the  Latin  Fathers,  and  from  the  traditions  of 
medieval  Christianity  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries. 
The  depositum  fidei  of  these  periods,  though  frequently 
neglected,  was  always  latent  in  Anglicanism;  when  given 
an  opportunity  by  the  failure  of  Calvinistic  Evangeli- 
calism, and  stimulated  by  a  series  of  political  agitations,  it 
suddenly  sprang  into  prominence,  showed  an  unexpected 
vitality,  and  assailed  some  time-honored  theories  which  had 
hitherto  contained  the  substance  of  loyal  churchmanship. 

But  while  what  may  be  called  the  historic  leaven  of  Trac- 
tarianism  ^  existed  long  prior  to  its  emergence,  its  charac- 
teristic forms  and  tendencies  were  determined  by  the  local 
atmosphere  and  by  current  events.  It  is  therefore  necessary 
to  ascertain  as  fully  as  may  be  possible  its  direct  and  indirect 
causes,  the  motives  which  governed  its  initiators,  their  rela- 
tive importance,  their  particular  efforts,  their  relations  with 
other  clerical  parties,  their  political,  social,  philosophical, 
and  religious  environments,  and  the  sum  total  of  these  various 
factors.  Some  such  comprehensive  survey,  which  seeks  to 
examine  and  combine  into  coherent  unity  a  great  variety  of 
elements,  many  of  which  are  ostensibly  unrelated,  is  never 
more  requisite  than  when  dealing  with  the  operations  of  the 
human  mind  in  the  realm  of  religious  speculation.  For  no- 
where else  does  the  blended  life  of  thought  and  action  become 
so  subtle  and  intricate,  or  spread  its  roots  over  such  widely 
separated  areas.     It  draws  its  sustenance  from  sources  which 

*  Christopher  Benson  (1798-1868),  Canon  of  Worcester  and  Master  of 
the  Temple,  an  Evangelical  of  the  more  liberal  sort,  is  credited  with  the 
invention  of  the  name  "Tractarian"  as  applied  to  Newman  and  his  col- 
leagues. 


392      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

betray  no  kinship  among  themselves.  And  even  when  the 
lines  of  research  are  extended  beyond  the  ordinary,  contrib- 
utory facts  are  likely  to  remain  outside  them.  The  pro- 
posed method  of  investigation  is  exacting,  and  any  attempt 
to  follow  it  must  at  best  be  but  approximate.  Yet  it  is  as 
indispensable  for  a  veritable  history  as  for  a  judicial  verdict 
upon  its  material,  and  should  lead  to  that  last  and  best 
result  —  a  sympathetic  knowledge  of  the  whole. 

Nor  can  it  be  forgotten  that  beyond  and  far  above  the 
assertions  and  disputes  which  confront  us  at  every  turn  is  a 
ceaseless  moral  force,  a  divine  tribunal,  which  regulates 
their  claims,  and  admits  or  rejects  their  pleas,  so  that  any 
effort  to  find  the  exact  points  of  continuity  between  past  and 
present  Anglicanism,  to  connect  its  apparently  isolated  eras, 
and  rightly  present  their  meanings,  should  be  reverent  in 
spirit  as  well  as  catholic  in  purpose. 


During  the  opening  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
Europe  was  absorbed  in  the  dramatic  and  overwhelming 
career  of  Napoleon  the  Great.  His  name  was  on  every  tongue, 
the  menace  of  his  measures  in  peace  or  war  disturbed  every 
heart.  Great  Britain's  integrity  was  at  stake ;  even  the 
destruction  of  her  commerce  and  the  capture  of  her  out- 
lying provinces  and  dependencies  were  contingencies  entirely 
overshadowed  by  the  threatened  invasion  of  the  Homeland 
itself.  The  energies  of  the  nation  were  monopolized  by  the 
political  dangers  of  a  ravaging  time.  There  was  neither 
opening  nor  inclination  for  matters  of  less  immediate  con- 
cern ;  these,  however  imperative  in  themselves,  were  post- 
poned to  a  more  convenient  season.  What  vitality  the 
Church  possessed  spent  itself  in  subservience  to  the  antag- 
onisms of  theological  and  political  partisanship,  or  in  de- 
nouncing the  tenets  inculcated  by  the  Revolutionists  of 
France.     The  ideas  mediated  through  Voltaire,  Rousseau, 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  393 

Diderot,  and  other  savants  and  philosophers  to  men  of  fearful 
and  decisive  action,  such  as  Mirabeau,  Barnave,  Danton, 
Desmoulins,  and  the  Terrorists,  were  originally  adopted 
from  English  history,  political  philosophy,  and  romance. 
For  enlightened  Frenchmen  England  became  the  dream- 
land of  freedom  of  conscience,  and  those  who  knew  her 
language  of  liberty  began  to  evince  an  independence  of 
thought  which  foreboded  the  hurricane  that  followed.  But 
although  the  anaemic  organism  of  France  had  been  flooded 
with  life  by  Scotch  and  English  thinkers  and  economists,  the 
vast  majority  of  sober  if  shortsighted  Britons  heeded  Burke's 
magnificent  warnings,  and  refused  to  have  any  dealings  with 
a  regeneration  disfigured  by  prodigious  cruelties  and  excesses. 
Even  those  who  regarded  with  a  measure  of  approval  the 
doctrines  of  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity  deferred  their 
consideration.  A  strong  reactionary  temper  pervaded  society 
and  nullified  the  demand  for  domestic  reforms. 

The  Crown  had  been  subjected  to  repeated  humiliations 
by  the  intellectual,  and  still  more  the  moral  frailty  of  succes- 
sive monarchs.  Aristocratic  circles  dictated  the  wobbling 
experiments  of  a  Government  incapable  of  self-improvement 
and  without  that  steadfast  support  which  a  policy  of  justice 
toward  the  oppressed  might  have  obtained.  The  narrow 
and  despotic  caliber  of  such  publicists  as  Sidmouth,  Castle- 
reagh,  Eldon,  and  Liverpool  displayed  a  skill  that  wore  many 
of  the  aspects  of  intrigue  against  the  popular  welfare  and 
defeated  every  proposition  in  its  behalf.  Even  more  enlight- 
ened statesmen,  including  Tierney,  Brougham,  and  Mackin- 
tosh, who  urged  legal  propriety  in  the  numerous  trials  for 
sedition  and  treason,  and  less  drastic  punishment  for  lawless 
outbreaks,  were  prompt  to  disclaim  any  relation  with  the 
deluded  Radicals.  The  gross  and  open  corruption  of  an 
extremely  limited  franchise  by  noble  and  wealthy  families; 
the  political  and  religious  disabilities  to  which  large  and  grow- 
ing towns  and  cities  were  subjected,  while  insignificant  and 
in  some  instances  nearly  extinct  constituencies  were  over- 


394      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

represented  in  Parliament,  aroused  the  wrath  of  industrial 
magnates  who  owed  their  positions  to  their  own  enterprise 
and  their  exploitation  of  labor.  Whigs  and  Tories  were  more 
at  variance  with  the  masses  than  with  each  other.  Nor 
would  this  composite  and  depressing  picture  of  the  aristoc- 
racy, the  landowners,  and  the  merchants  be  complete  with- 
out a  reference  to  the  official  nepotists  and  place-hunters 
who 

"  leech-like,  to  their  fainting  country  '  clung,'  " 

heartily  despising  the  proletariat  and  defending  the  minis- 
ters who  rewarded  them  with  jobs,  titles,  and  pensions. 

The  universities  and  the  public  schools  which  fed  them  had 
too  often  fostered  obscurantism  in  preference  to  light  and 
freedom.  Reflecting,  as  they  did,  stolid  prejudices  and  cus- 
toms, they  became  the  haunts  of  ultra-conservatism  rather 
than  dispensaries  of  knowledge  at  any  risk,  encouraging  that 
love  of  truth  "for  which  youth  is  the  inevitable  season."  At 
Oxford,  as  nowhere  else,  were  to  be  found  the  last  ponderous 
links  of  the  shattered  chains  of  feudalism,  chafing  her  temper 
and  hampering  her  advance.  The  scrutiny  of  spiritual  or 
secular  authority  at  once  offended  her  well-drilled  instincts. 
Tastes  and  habits  inherited  and  inborn,  arising  from  the 
depths  of  her  immemorial  past,  protested  against  change 
of  any  kind. 

At  this  critical  juncture  the  bishops  and  heads  of  colleges 
were  found  in  alliance  with  other  stable  elements  of  polite 
society  against  that  painful  revulsion  to  actual  life  which 
sharply  disturbed  their  stock  notions  and  comfortable  exist- 
ence. So  long  as  the  dread  of  Napoleon's  hegemony  lasted, 
revolt  against  them  and  against  governmental  control  by 
the  landed  proprietors,  although  incipient,  was  held  in  check. 
Once  released,  it  became  aggressively  persistent;  allegiance 
to  the  monarchy  visibly  declined,  the  prescriptive  rights  of 
prelates  and  peers  were  rudely  assailed,  and  acquiescence  in 
the  rule  of  existing  hierarchies  of  Church  and  State  was  with- 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  395 

drawn.  From  1812  to  1832  these  privileged  orders  were 
made  the  objects  of  popular  attack.  The  leaders  of  the 
onslaught  represented  nearly  every  rank  and  condition  of 
society,  and  those  who  made  it  effective  were  men  of  birth 
and  breeding.  But  its  underlying  causes  existed  in  the 
general  discontent,  wretchedness,  and  poverty. 

Artisans  and  peasants,  crushed  by  the  burden  of  the 
largest  debt  ever  yet  incurred  by  any  nation,  were  not  al- 
lowed to  participate  in  public  affairs.  The  destitution  which 
crowded  on  the  heels  of  an  artificial  prosperity,  due  to  war 
tariffs  and  inflated  prices,  led  to  misery  and  disafl^ection 
among  the  poor.  For  the  time,  labor-saving  machinery, 
which  eventually  gave  England  her  commercial  supremacy, 
bore  hard  on  the  hand-craftsmen.  Agriculture  was  pros- 
trated, farms  went  out  of  cultivation,  half  the  inhabitants  of 
many  rural  parishes  were  reduced  to  beggary,  and  the  price 
of  iron,  the  staple  product  in  manufactures,  fell  fifty  per 
cent.  As  a  consequence  bread  riots  were  frequent,  and  had 
to  be  repressed  by  the  use  of  the  military  arm. 

This  widespread  distress  was  not  only  accentuated  by  the 
selfishness  and  incapacity  of  the  Government,  but  exagger- 
ated by  the  fiery  harangues  of  patriots  and  demagogues. 
Among  the  exponents  of  a  larger  freedom  whose  motives  were 
sincere,  William  Cobbett  was  remarkable,  rather  for  his  em- 
bodiment of  the  hopes  and  fears  of  the  yeomanry  than  for  any 
consistent  scheme  of  reform.  Amazing  as  were  his  extrav- 
agances, his  exhaustless  store  of  passionate  and  picturesque 
rhetoric,  racy  of  the  soil,  enabled  him  to  wield  such  an  ex- 
tensive sway  that  Hazlitt  declared  he  formed  a  Fourth 
Estate  in  himself.  The  violence  of  pamphleteers  and  orators 
like  Hobhouse  and  Hunt,  and  the  satirical  and  denunciatory 
poetry  of  Byron  and  Shelley,  excited  public  indignation  until 
it  became  permanent  and  dangerous. 

Such  a  lamentable  state  of  affairs  was  further  aggravated 
by  the  eternal  problem  of  Ireland,  where  those  outside  the 
pale  of  Ulster  looked  upon  those  within  it  as  occupants  of  a 


396      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

stolen  territory.  The  history  of  the  sister  island  pronounced 
judgment  upon  Englishmen  as  strong,  resourceful,  but  un- 
scrupulous rulers.  The  wrongs  inflicted  upon  Roman 
Catholic  natives  because  of  their  ancestral  faith  were  kept 
alive  by  vivid  recollection  and  frequent  recurrence.  The 
name  and  fellowship  of  Britons  were  abominated.  The 
news  of  their  supremacy  at  home  or  abroad  was  heard  with 
loathing,  the  anticipation  of  their  defeat  nurtured  as  the 
best  of  consolations.^  These  woes  at  last  found  a  trumpet 
voice  in  Daniel  O'Connell,  whose  pleading  for  the  annul- 
ment of  the  penal  laws  against  their  religion  entranced  his 
countrymen.  His  arraignments  of  this  bigoted  discrimina- 
tion marked  the  turning  of  the  tide  of  Toryism,  which  at 
last  had  overreached  itself  and,  despite  the  unique  influence 
of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  then  the  "foremost  captain  of 
his  time, "  began  to  run  swiftly  in  the  opposite  direction. 

The  Dissenters  now  rallied  their  forces  for  the  total  repeal 
of  the  Corporation  Act  and  the  Test  Act.^  Among  other 
persons  of  consequence  the  Duke  of  Sussex,  Lord  Holland, 
and  Lord  John  Russell  came  to  their  aid,  and  insisted  upon 
a  complete  restoration  of  the  civil  and  religious  rights  of 
three  million  subjects  who  belonged  to  Nonconformist 
churches.  These  Acts  were  an  evil  legacy  from  the  reign  of 
Charles  H,  and  the  question  of  their  repeal  had  been  shirked 
from  1790  until  1828.  In  operation  they  had  gradually  sunk 
beneath  the  level  of  contempt,  and  were  denounced  for  inject- 
ing the  venom  of  theological  quarrels  into  political  discussion, 
and  profaning  religion  with  the  vices  of  worldly  ambition, 
thus  making  it  both  hateful  to  man  and  offensive  to  God. 
Lord  Eldon  predicted  that  their  removal  from  the  statute- 

*  W.  S.  Lilly:  "Characteristics  from  the  Writings  of  John  Henry  New- 
man" ;   pp.  158-159. 

*  The  Test  Act  compelled  all  persons  holding  office  of  profit  or  trust  under 
the  Crown  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance,  to  receive  the  Sacrament  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  according  to  the  rites  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  to  sub- 
scribe to  the  declaration  against  Transubstantiation.  The  Corporation 
Act,  of  like  import,  militated  against  the  ascendency  of  Nonconformists 
in  cities  and  towns. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  397 

book,  which  took  place  in  1826,  would  speedily  be  followed 
by  a  Catholic  Emancipation  Bill.  The  event  justified  his 
forecast ;  O'Connell's  election  to  Parliament  in  the  same  year 
raised  the  question  in  such  an  acute  form  that  Wellington 
and  Peel  found  themselves  powerless  to  quell  the  agitation 
which  ensued,  and  on  April  13,  1829,  that  measure  became 
law. 

The  long-delayed  abolition  of  these  anomalies  was  only  the 
prelude  for  an  extension  of  the  electoral  franchise  obtained 
three  years  later  under  I^ord  Grey's  premiership.  The 
Tories  realigned  their  shattered  ranks  to  save  the  constitu- 
tion, as  they  declared,  from  the  invasions  of  an  insolent 
rabble  bent  on  destroying  the  Crown,  the  Church,  the  landed 
system,  and  whatever  else  made  England  truly  great.  The 
nobles  were  impervious  to  social  pressure ;  the  isolation  im- 
posed upon  them  by  their  position  made  them  contemp- 
tuous of  changes  near  at  hand ;  changes  they  could  not 
prevent,  but  which  they  scorned  with  the  fury  of  outraged 
pride  and  injured  self-interest.  Their  wild  prophecies  of 
irremediable  evil  were  groundless.  The  Reform  Bill  intro- 
duced by  Lord  Grey  contained  nothing  inconsistent  with  the 
principles  or  practices  of  England's  unwritten  constitution, 
or  that  in  any  way  violated  the  precedents  upon  which  it  was 
founded.  Pitt  had  contended  for  the  aristocracy  as  against 
'  the  usurpations  of  the  personal  rule  of  George  the  Third ; 
Grey  contended  for  the  bankers  and  manufacturers  as  against 
the  monopolies  of  the  aristocracy.  The  democracy  which 
had  borne  the  weight  of  the  Napoleonic  wars  lay  outside  the 
range  of  Whig  statesmanship. 

Nothing  was  done  to  remove  the  economic  grievances  from 
which  the  nation  suffered,  and  many  other  notorious  wrongs 
were  left  unredressed.  Yet  the  Bill  encountered  such  deter- 
mined opposition,  prepared  to  go  to  any  length  for  its  defeat, 
that  a  more  comprehensive  enactment  could  not  have  been 
secured  without  incurring  the  risks  of  civil  war.  If  the 
formidable  and  weighty  reasonings  of  Grey  and  Russell  could 


398      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

not  be  refuted,  the  Bill  could  at  least  be  voted  down  in  that 
Malakoff  of  Toryism,  the  House  of  Lords ;  and  voted  down 
it  was.  Twenty-one  bishops  registered  themselves  in  the 
total  majority  of  forty-one  against  it. 

Upon  its  rejection  the  people  rose  in  resistless  strength, 
and  converted  Grey's  proposals  into  law.  Disturbances  at 
Bristol,  Nottingham,  Derby,  and  other  industrial  centers 
showed  that  no  faction  could  hold  its  own  against  the  will 
of  an  aroused  commonwealth,  and  after  being  presented  to 
the  House  three  times  in  twelve  months,  the  Bill  again  passed 
the  Commons.  A  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men  met  at 
Birmingham,  formerly  the  scene  of  the  depredations  of  a 
Church  and  King  mob  which  destroyed  Dr.  Priestley's  house, 
and  petitioned  William  IV  to  create  as  many  new  peers  as 
might  be  necessary  to  ensure  the  success  of  the  measure. 
It  was  no  longer  a  question  of  what  the  Lords  would  do  with 
the  Bill,  but  of  what  the  countrj^  would  do  with  the  Lords. 
At  the  final  moment,  and  just  in  time  to  prolong  the  Hanove- 
rian dynasty  for  happier  days,  the  King  yielded,  the  Bill 
passed  both  Houses,  and  received  the  royal  assent.  The 
peers,  who  had  withdrawn  their  opposition,  skulked  in  clubs 
and  country  mansions,  careless  to  dissemble  their  chagrin. 

Although  this  broadening  of  the  suffrage  was  too  restricted 
to  accomplish  any  immediate  revolutionary  changes,  it 
renewed  the  youth  of  England  without  forfeiting  the  ad- 
vantages of  her  rich  experience.  It  battered  down  some 
strongholds  of  privilege,  released  a  forward  impulse  for  the 
causes  of  religious  and  civil  equity,  preserved  the  realm  from 
internecine  strife,  and  placed  its  government  on  a  surer  basis 
of  confidence  and  good  will.  Boundaries  were  prescribed 
for  the  haughty  claims  of  a  hereditary  peerage,  and  the  en- 
croachments of  a  self-perpetuating  oligarchy  received  a 
decided  repulse.  Best  of  all,  and  most  conducive  to  the 
welfare  of  the  nation,  Lord  Grey's  victory  animated  the 
public  mind  with  a  spirit  of  courage,  patience,  and  generous 
enthusiasm.     It  enabled  men  to  bide  their  time  and  devote 


JOHN    HENRY   NEWMAN  399 

themselves  afresh  to  the  justice  and  freedom  for  which  the 
Bill  of  1832  supplied  a  precedent.  Hope  rather  than  reali- 
zation inspired  the  rejoicings  which  everywhere  prevailed. 
Nor  was  that  hope  to  be  made  ashamed.  It  found  its 
fruition  in  an  orderly  and  lawful  development  of  popular 
control  under  which  Britain  has  become  the  mother  and  the 
maker  of  States,  and  which  has  furnished  the  model  for 
similar  constitutional  efforts. 

II 

The  political  and  social  conditions  which  gave  birth  to  those 
events  that  precipitated  the  Oxford  Movement  were  naturally 
followed  by  a  revival  of  philosophical  speculation,  which 
raised  new  issues  for  theology  and  controverted  current 
orthodoxy  with  unwonted  boldness.  Reflective  minds, 
freed  from  the  distractions  due  to  international  difficulties, 
reverted  to  the  more  congenial  pursuits  of  intellectual  and 
ethical  inquiry.  ''The  several  religious  parties,  disengaged 
from  their  civic  campaign,  were  sent  home  to  their  spiritual 
husbandry,  and  thrown  upon  their  intrinsic  resources  of 
genius  and  character.  The  time,  ever  so  critical  for  Church 
and  doctrine,  had  come  at  last,  —  the  time  of  searching 
thought  and  quiet  work.  Other  charity  than  would  serve 
upon  the  hustings,  —  a  deeper  gospel  than  was  known  at 
apocalyptic  tea  tables,  —  a  piety  stimulant  of  no  platform 
cheers,  became  indispensable  in  evidence  and  expression  of 
the  Christian  life."  ^ 

Among  the  currents  of  reforming  thought  which  flowed 
into  the  stream  of  nineteenth  century  philosophy  the  first 
in  order,  though  not  in  merit,  was  the  ethical  system  of  the 
Benthamites,  known  as  Utilitarianism.  No  divination  of 
impending  changes  which  arose  on  the  ruins  of  the  Napoleonic 
regime  was  more  keen  and  resolute  than  that  of  these  thinkers, 
who  followed  in  the  wake  of  Locke's  seventeenth  century 

>  James  Martineau :    "Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  222. 


400     THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

empiricism,  and  also  reproduced  the  strength  and  the  weak- 
ness of  eighteenth  century  philosophy.  In  the  midst  of 
intellectual  and  social  unrest,  of  doubt,  perplexity,  and 
hesitation,  the  writings  of  the  Benthamites  were  distinguished 
for  their  cool  acumen,  fearlessness,  dogmatic  assurance,  and 
for  a  fastidious  integrity  which  gave  them  a  wide  popularity. 
They  were  not  collections  of  desultory  remarks,  but  orderly 
and  articulated  discussions  of  absorbing  themes  which  per- 
mitted no  deviation.  Their  beginnings  had  reference  to 
their  conclusions,  and  almost  every  part  had  some  relation, 
and  frequently  a  close  one,  to  other  parts. 

Jeremy  Bentham  concentrated  his  attention  on  jurispru- 
dence, James  Mill  on  psychology,  and  John  Stuart  Mill  ex- 
pounded a  new  political  economy.  Although  the  subjects 
with  which  they  dealt  were  too  full  of  the  contentions 
brought  about  by  the  growth  of  knowledge  for  their  works 
to  become  permanent  authorities,  nevertheless  they  were 
erudite,  thorough,  far-reaching ;  notable  for  skillful  capacity 
and  high  aims.  The  writers  were  principally  concerned  to 
discover  the  meaning  and  obligation  of  the  moral  code  under 
which  men  lived.  Finding,  as  they  contended,  nothing  save 
contradictions,  they  resolved  to  begin  de  novo.  Their  un- 
flinching application  of  reason  to  moral  phenomena  led  them 
to  a  complete  abandonment  of  prevailing  ethical  creeds. 
Thus  deprived  of  any  assistance  from  the  past,  they  fixed  at- 
tention on  man  himself  as  the  one  indispensable  reality. 

Utilitarianism  defined  matter  as  "the  permanent  possibil- 
ity of  sensation,"  and  mind  as  "the  permanent  possibility 
of  feeling."  Experience  was  the  sole  source  of  knowledge, 
and  the  mind  derived  its  entire  fund  of  materials  through  the 
senses,  a  priori  and  intuitive  elements  of  every  kind  being 
rejected.  The  so-called  primary  truths  or  innate  ideas 
were  only  habits  of  the  mind  which  time  and  repetition  had 
rendered  irresistible.  The  mind,  the  Benthamites  averred, 
contributed  nothing  of  itself  to  the  structure  of  knowledge. 
John  Stuart  Mill  went  so  far  as  to  deny  the  principle  of  con- 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  401 

tradiction,  and  declared  that  we  were  not  even  sure  that  we 
were  not  sure.  When  Hume  conceded  the  necessary  truth 
of  the  axioms  of  Euchd,  Mill  rebelled  against  the  concession, 
and  urged  that  "  there  might  be  another  world  in  which  two 
and  two  make  five."  "My  mind  is  but  a  series  of  feelings," 
he  remarked,  "a  thread  of  consciousness,  however  supple- 
mented by  the  believed  possibilities  of  consciousness,  which 
are  not,  though  they  might  be  realized." 

Although  Mill  disliked  the  inference,  and  tried  to  escape 
it,  these  views  were  closely  afiiliated  with  necessitarianism. 
"An  act  of  will,"  quoting  from  his  own  words,  "is  a  moral 
effect  which  follows  the  corresponding  moral  causes  as  cer- 
tainly and  invariably  as  physical  effects  follow  their  physical 
causes."  This  and  similar  statements  which  dealt  with  the 
subtleties  of  human  nature  lacked  Mill's  customary  clearness 
and  accuracy.  Their  looseness  and  confusion  have  since 
been  remarked  by  more  critical  philosophers,  to  whom  it  was 
obvious  that  they  aimed  a  mortal  blow  at  ethical  freedom, 
and  annulled  that  personal  responsibility  which  is  the  source 
of  moral  character. 

The  attack  on  the  integrity  and  reality  of  mind  as  the  nexus 
of  personality  and  on  the  will  as  the  decisive  factor  in  con- 
duct has  now  spent  its  force.  It  endeavored  to  undermine 
the  only  intelligent  basis  for  experience,  notwithstanding 
that  on  experience  the  Utilitarians  rested  their  whole  case. 
From  it  alone  they  sought  to  derive  the  laws  which  govern 
mental  and  moral  life,  but  they  gave  no  satisfactory  explana- 
tion of  the  unity  of  consciousness  which  is  presupposed  in 
every  form  of  intellectual  activity.  Apart  from  that  unity, 
such  self-evident  functions  of  mind  as  discrimination  and 
combination  are  altogether  impossible.  The  mind  itself, 
reduced  to  a  mere  series  of  feelings,  is  destroyed  as  a  real 
agent.  And  in  his  oscillations  between  idealism  and  mate- 
rialism. Mill  was  frequently  compelled  to  recognize  personal- 
ity, the  existence  of  which  he  sought  to  disprove. 

The  assertion  that  individual  and  universal  happiness 
2d 


402      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

according  to  reason  was  the  most  desirable  end,  was  a 
further  and  incurable  defect  in  Utilitarianism  and  also 
a  virtual  impeachment  of  its  entire  ethical  position.  The 
qualitative  distinction  between  one  form  of  happiness  and 
another  required  a  moral  sense  to  discern  it.  For  Bentham 
push-pin  was  as  good  as  poetry  provided  it  afforded  equal 
pleasure.  Mill  shied  at  this  ludicrous  deduction,  and  averred 
that  it  was  better  to  be  Socrates  dissatisfied  than  a  fool  satis- 
fied. Many  critics  heartily  echoed  Mill's  plea,  but  he  could 
not  urge  it  and  remain  consistent.  His  observation  dis- 
placed pleasure  as  the  standard  and  goal  in  itself.  Carlyle 
chuckled  over  the  lameness  of  Mill's  logic  in  the  statement 
that  each  person's  happiness  was  a  good  to  that  person,  and 
therefore  the  general  happiness  a  good  to  the  aggregate  of 
persons.  Even  later  Utilitarians,  without  any  admiration 
for  the  Sage  of  Chelsea's  somewhat  uncouth  retort,  have  felt 
equally  impatient  with  reasonings  that  entailed  such  a 
sordid  and  unlovely  view  of  human  nature. 

A  theory  which  denied  the  existence  of  a  priori  ideas  and 
the  trustworthiness  of  the  moral  sense  necessarily  obliterated 
the  fundamental  distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  and 
ended  by  enthroning  social  utility,  with  personal  happiness 
for  its  inspiring  motive,  as  the  paramount  law  of  conduct. 
The  bases  of  faith  were  thus  swept  away,  and  conscience 
was  merged  into  enlightened  self-interest,  the  prevalence  of 
which  would  presently  demonstrate  that  Christianity  was 
superfluous. 

In  rebuttal,  it  has  been  shown  that  the  true  relation 
between  the  individual  and  social  welfare  is  not  sentimental 
but  rational.  On  the  ground  that  man  is  incapable  of 
finding  contentment  in  gratified  feeling,  but  capable  of  self- 
realization  in  a  common  good,  the  opponents  of  Utilitarian- 
ism were  justified  in  setting  aside  arguments  founded  on 
comparisons  of  pleasures.  The  conviction  that  the  emotional 
nature  provides  no  ground  of  authority  for  moral  conduct, 
and  that  conscience  and  reason  do  this,  and  do  it  in  all 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  403 

realms,  awakened  Thomas  Arnold's  antipathy  to  Ben- 
thamism and  Newmanism  alike  as  "the  two  grand  coun- 
terfeits forged  at  the  opposite  extremes  of  error.  The  one 
merged  the  conscience  in  self-interest,  the  other  in  priest- 
craft :  the  one  identified  moral  and  sentient  good,  the  other 
separated  moral  and  spiritual.  Both  extinguished  the 
proper  personality  and  individual  sacredness  of  man ;  the  one 
treating  him  as  a  thing  to  be  mechanically  shaped,  the  other 
as  a  thing  to  be  mysteriously  conjured  with.  In  opposition 
to  both  systems,  which  sought  for  human  conduct  some  exter- 
nal guide,  the  one  in  social  utility,  the  other  in  church  author- 
ity, Arnold  held  fast  to  the  internal  guidance  which  he 
maintained  God  had  given  to  all,  and  through  which  His  Will 
was  practicable  and  Himself  accessible  to  all."  ^ 

The  repelling  effect  of  the  Utilitarian  ethic  upon  confident 
believers  in  a  Divine  order,  who  held  with  passionate  inten- 
sity definite  views  of  the  constant  workings  of  that  order  in 
the  world,  can  scarcely  be  imagined  now.  Set  forth,  as  it 
was,  in  penetrating  ways,  the  creed  owed  as  much  to  the 
weakness  of  its  antagonists  as  to  its  inherent  strength,  and 
released  a  militant  spirit  with  which  the  Church  seemed 
unable  to  cope.  Enjoying  nothing  of  that  noble  intimacy 
with  the  inner  facts  of  life  which  illuminates  philosophical 
speculation,  its  stark  individualism  made  a  powerful  appeal 
to  those  who  delighted  in  things  which  perish  with  the 
using,  and  who  looked  upon  pleasure  as  the  sole  end  of 
being. 

Yet  on  its  better  side  this  philosophy  rebuked  the  indiffer- 
ence of  churchmen  and  religionists  to  social  disparities.  It 
gave  pause  to  the  cold-blooded  rapture  with  which  some 
Evangelicals  portrayed  the  doom  of  the  material  universe. 
It  originated  and  set  in  motion  many  useful  and  wisely 
considered  reforms,  and  by  its  thoroughgoing  treatment  of 
personality  it  compelled  theologians  to  reexamine  moral 
and  religious  intuitions,  and  to  seek  less  assailable  grounds 
'  James  Martineau  :  "Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses "  ;  Vol.  I,  pp.  73-74. 


404      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

for  their  opinions.  They  were  admonished  to  remember  that 
Christianity  should  be  reasonable  as  well  as  devout ;  should 
invigorate  the  intelligence  as  well  as  transform  character; 
that  it  should  neither  darken  the  conscience  nor  scandalize 
the  mind.  But  behind  the  efforts  of  the  Benthamites  to 
explain  man  lay  that  belittling  estimate  of  human  nature 
which  impaired  their  discourse  and  thwarted  their  enter- 
prises. Notwithstanding  that  their  economic  teachings  have 
borne  fruit  in  many  directions,  their  system  as  a  whole  is  a 
warning  that  a  sufficient  doctrine  of  man's  essential  nobility 
must  lie  at  the  foundation  of  any  speculation  or  action  which 
proposes  the  betterment  of  the  race.^ 

Among  other  opponents  to  Benthamism,  the  Tractarians 
donned  their  armor  and  entered  upon  a  campaign  in  which 
they  proved,  if  not  invulnerable,  at  any  rate,  uncompromis- 
ing antagonists,  who  neither  gave  nor  asked  for  quarter. 
Yet  John  Stuart  Mill,  the  latest  oracle  of  rationalistic  inspira- 
tion, had  much  to  say  for  these  determined  adversaries.  "  He 
used  to  tell  us,"  remarked  Lord  Morley,  "that  the  Oxford 
Theologians  had  done  for  England  something  like  what 
Guizot,  Villemain,  Michelet,  Cousin  had  done  a  little  earlier 
for  France ;  they  had  opened,  broadened,  deepened  the  issues 
and  meanings  of  European  history;  they  had  reminded  us 
that  history  is  European,  that  it  is  quite  unintelligible  if 
treated  as  merely  local.  Moreover,  thought  should  recognize 
thought  and  mind  always  welcome  mind ;  and  the  Oxford 
men  had  at  least  brought  argument,  learning,  and  even  phi- 
losophy of  a  sort  to  bear  upon  the  narrow  and  frigid  conven- 
tions of  the  reigning  system  in  church  and  college,  in  pulpits 
and  professional  chairs.  They  had  made  the  church  ashamed 
of  the  evil  of  her  ways,  they  had  determined  that  spirit  of 
improvement  from  within,  which,  if  this  sect-ridden  country 
is  ever  really  to  be  taught,  must  proceed  pari  passu  with 
assault  from  without.'"  - 

*  For  a  further  treatment  of  Utilitarianism  see  the  author's  volume  on 
"Charles  Darwin  and  Other  English  Thinkers"  ;    pp.  91-139. 
«"Life  of  Gladstone";    Vol.  I,  pp.  163,  164. 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  405 

The  ethical  speculations  enumerated  were  quickened  by 
the  inflow  of  Teutonic  thought,  whether  to  deluge  or  to 
irrigate,  which  began  about  this  time  at  the  Universities 
of  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  In  Germany  Hume's  appeal  to 
the  world  of  the  five  senses  had  long  ceased  to  charm  superior 
minds.  A  succession  of  poets  and  thinkers  emulated  one 
another  in  brushing  aside  the  sandy  sophisms  of  Locke  and 
the  conclusions  of  his  school.  They  destroyed  the  after- 
math of  eighteenth  century  deism  which  encouraged  the 
notion  of  an  absentee  God,  and  they  reinvested  His  creation 
with  spiritual  significance  and  splendor.  The  infinite  and 
finite  elements  in  man  and  nature  were  reiterated  by  Goethe 
and  Kant,  Hegel  and  Lessing,  Fichte  and  Schiller.  Meta- 
physics was  reestablished  upon  an  ampler  basis,  psychology 
assumed  a  subordinate  place,  and  the  universe  was  viewed  by 
them  as  pulsating  with  the  mystery  and  majesty  of  endless 
life  and  purpose. 

Immanuel  Kant  continued  the  apologetic  of  Butler  in 
behalf  of  supernaturalism,  but  he  went  far  beyond  the  Eng- 
lish doctor's  Probabilism,  and  rejected  the  mischievous  idea 
that  the  chief  end  of  religion  was  to  promote  morality.  His 
reasoning  demonstrated  that  in  the  sequence  such  a  notion 
was  inimical  to  religion.  Disinterestedness  was  the  essence 
of  virtue ;  wherever  ulterior  motives  prevailed,  and  however 
derived,  they  were  subversive  of  genuine  morality.  The 
scarcely  disguised  Utilitarianism  of  Paley,  who  defined  virtue 
as  the  doing  of  good  to  mankind  in  obedience  to  the  will  of 
God,  and  for  the  sake  of  everlasting  happiness,  made  virtue 
to  spring  from  self-seeking,  and  found  its  sanction  in  rewards 
and  punishments.  This  other-world  selfishness,  as  it  has 
been  justly  termed,  was  set  aside  by  the  categorical  impera- 
tive of  Kant,  which  rested  morality  on  duty,  and  defined 
religion  as  the  love  of  goodness  for  its  own  sake,  and  the 
cheerful  acceptance  of  duty  without  regard  to  gain  or  loss, 
because  it  was  the  manifested  will  of  the  Eternal. 

On  that  day  in  the  year  when  the  faculty  of  the  University 


406      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

of  Koenigsberg  went  to  the  town  church  to  worship,  Kant 
paused  at  the  entrance  of  the  sacred  edifice  and  returned 
home  to  his  study,  thus  reveahng  his  attitude  toward  Lu- 
theran theology  and  disciphne.  Yet  inadequate  as  his  inter- 
pretation of  rehgion  was  in  the  direction  of  practical  devo- 
tion, it  served  to  vindicate  faith  on  its  philosophical  side,  and 
to  rescue  it  from  the  oblivion  to  which  some  advanced  thinkers 
had  consigned  it,  transferring  it  to  an  invigorating  intellectual 
climate,  in  which  evasive  conformity  or  patronizing  superior- 
ity was  no  longer  the  accepted  mark  of  culture. 

Lessing  felt  as  keenly  as  Kant  the  necessity  for  a  rejuve- 
nated ethic  and  religion.  But  realizing  that  he  was  without 
the  capacity  to  bring  this  about,  he  invoked  the  advent  of  a 
stronger  thinker.  The  Messiah  of  the  new  era  was  Schleier- 
macher,  with  whom  Luther's  reform  returned  to  its  creative 
principle  —  justification  by  the  faith  of  the  heart  —  and 
Protestantism  entered  upon  a  new  phase. 

His  Moravian  antecedents  endowed  Schleiermacher  with  a 
warm  intense  piety,  not  unduly  dogmatic.  His  philosophical 
caste  was  fashioned  in  the  dialectic  of  Plato  and  Spinoza. 
He  strove  to  reconcile  sentiment  and  reason,  and  to  find  a 
scientific  theory  for  faith.  His  "Discourses  upon  Religion," 
which  appeared  in  1799,  blended  the  passion  for  religion, 
which  is  in  truth  a  gre^t  romanticism,  with  the  play  of  a 
marvelous  sympathy,  which,  again,  is  only  another  aspect  of 
imagination.  The  happy  abstractions  of  the  scholar  were 
varied  by  the  fervid  aspirations  of  the  saint.  His  readers 
felt  the  emission  from  his  words  of  something  pure  and  kind- 
ling, which  evoked  their  better  selves.  Those  in  whom  piety 
was  at  odds  with  mental  temperament  and  circumstances 
were  reconciled  by  the  teachings  of  a  prophet  who  could  not 
conceive  of  religion  except  in  terms  of  the  subjective  con- 
sciousness and  apart  from  anything  external.  The  divine 
life  in  man  had  its  residence  in  the  emotions,  and  was  as  care- 
fully separated  from  dogmatic  authority  as  it  was  from  ethical 
precepts.     Independent,  because  in  itself  supreme,  religion, 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  407 

according  to  the  famous  German  preacher  and  theologian, 
was  an  ineffable  communion  between  the  heart  and  God.  "  It 
vindicates  for  itself  its  own  sphere  and  its  own  character  only 
by  abandoning  entirely  the  provinces  of  science  and  practice ; 
and  when  it  has  raised  itself  beside  them,  the  whole  field  is 
for  the  first  time  completely  filled  and  human  nature  per- 
fected. Religion  reveals  itself  as  the  necessary  and  indis- 
pensable third,  as  the  natural  complement  of  knowledge  and 
conduct,  not  inferior  to  them  in  worth  and  dignity."  ^ 

The  origin  and  development  of  experiences  must  be  ana- 
lyzed before  reliable  data  could  be  obtained .  Hence  the  proper 
subject  for  religious  inquiry  was  the  mind  engaged  and  ab- 
sorbed in  the  knowledge  that  God  is  all  and  in  all.  In  brief, 
the  entire  question  of  the  nature  of  religion  and  its  expression 
was  transferred  from  philosophy  to  psychology,  and  its 
authority  was  found  in  no  creed  nor  volume,  still  less  in  an 
ecclesiastical  organization,  but  in  the  attested  experiences  of 
the  devout.  External  standards  could  not  bind  the  spiritual 
man ;  he  judged  all  things ;  within  his  breast  and  nowhere 
else,  the  divine  law  registered  those  decisions  from  which 
there  was  no  appeal.  Theology,  therefore,  was  not  specula- 
tive but  expressive.  Its  subject  matter  consisted  of  the  facts 
of  Christian  experience,  and  its  function  was  to  formulate 
these  without  reference  to  the  problems  of  metaphysics  or 
the  discoveries  of  physical  science. 

But  while  every  believer's  personal  consciousness  of  sin 
vanquished  and  overcome  by  the  mediation  of  Christ  con- 
stituted for  him  the  ultimate  ground  of  his  confidence,  it  was 
impossible  for  him  to  isolate  this  experience  from  that  of 
others  similarly  blessed.  A  nature  steeped  in  the  life  of 
faith  clung  to  the  principle  of  association,  without  which  it 
could  not  reach  its  fullest  possibilities.  Furthermore,  the 
immanence  of  God  in  humanity,  an  idea  fundamental  to 
Schleiermacher's  entire  system,  was  directly  related  to  the 

1  Quoted  by  Arthur  C.  McGiffert:  "The  Rise  of  Modern  Religious 
Ideas";    pp.  65  et  seq. 


408      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

rise  and  structure  of  the  Church  as  its  manifestation. 
On  these  two  immovable  pillars  he  founded  her  strength  and 
security,  conceiving  her,  not  as  an  institution,  nor  as  an 
hierarchy,  but  as  the  congregation  of  faithful  souls,  in  whose 
corporate  existence  the  dwelling  of  the  Divine  Spirit  for- 
bade schisms,  casting  out  the  self-will  and  discords  which 
created  them,  and  fusing  its  members  into  one  living  body 
which  radiated  a  glowing  fellowship  to  every  part. 

This  transfer  of  the  seat  of  religious  authority  to  experi- 
ence, while  still  preserving  the  place  and  integrity  of  the 
Bible  and  the  Church,  delivered  believers  from  apprehension 
concerning  those  changes  which  attend  expansion  in  knowl- 
edge. The  Church,  steadfast  in  the  spiritual  conscious- 
ness of  her  children,  was  under  no  necessity  to  practice 
methods  which,  while  they  stifled  doubt,  failed  to  reach  the 
truth.  Her  path  was  cleared  of  sacerdotal  and  credal 
obstacles ;  vulnerable  theories  of  Biblical  inerrancy  and 
ecclesiastical  infallibility,  which  could  not  survive  the  tests 
now  being  brought  to  bear  upon  them,  were  relegated  to  the 
rear.  The  growth  of  God's  Kingdom  was  hastened  by  this 
spirit  of  courageous  candor,  which  welcomed  truth  for  its 
own  sake,  let  it  emanate  whence  it  may. 

The  sources  of  Schleiermacher's  views  are  traceable 
to  the  Greek  Fathers  of  the  second  century,  in  particular 
to  Clement  of  Alexandria.  Both  in  its  positive  and  negative 
elements  Schleiermacher's  mind  was  as  entirely  Greek  as 
St.  Augustine's  was  entirely  Latin.  The  juristic  theology  of 
the  latter  was  dissolved  under  the  imaginative  mystical 
quality  of  Schleiermacher's  conceptions.  He  resented  con- 
crete things,  and  preferred  to  think  of  Christianity  as  a  living 
organism  endowed  with  the  potentiality  for  continuous 
growth.  Hence,  the  content  of  the  spiritual  consciousness 
was  always  being  increased,  and  this  increase  was  the  material 
for  a  progressive  as  opposed  to  a  static  theology.  The  Augus- 
tinian  doctrines  of  total  depravity,  atonement  in  the  terms 
of  sacrificial  Judaism,  and  the  endless  punishment  of  the 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  409 

unregenerate,  were  set  aside  as  repugnant  to  God  and  man. 
The  conception  of  God  as  a  Being  between  Whom  and  His 
creatures  yawned  an  impassable  gulf  was  rejected  as  deroga- 
tory to  the  self-communicating  life  and  love  of  the  Eternal 
Father.  On  the  contrary,  Schleiermacher  proclaimed  an 
illimitable  range  of  possibilities  as  the  chief  feature  of  divine 
and  human  intercourse.  And  although  such  boundlessness 
was  too  vague  and  shadowy  for  less  refined  and  mystical 
intellects,  or  for  those  which  were  attached  to  dogmatic  and 
symbolic  forms,  it  was  equally  true  that  in  recovering  and 
amplifying  the  idea  of  God  which  had  prevailed  in  the  ancient 
Church,  Schleiermacher  summoned  the  leaders  of  his  own 
and  after  times  to  a  fountain  of  suggestiveness  which  has 
fertilized  many  areas  of  Christian  thought  and  replenished 
the  inspiration  for  Christian  living.^ 

To  him  belongs,  therefore,  the  honor  of  giving  a  fresh 
impulse  and  direction  to  metaphysics  and  theology.  He 
showed  that  there  could  be  an  experimental  science  of 
religion,  which  observed,  classified,  and  elucidated  spiritual 
phenomena.  Thus,  in  the  words  of  Sabatier,  to  obtain 
independence  for  religion  and  for  the  science  of  religion 
its  uncontested  supremacy  was  the  most  eminent  service 
which  Schleiermacher  rendered  at  once  to  faith  and  philos- 
ophy. His  interpretations  were  instrumental  in  emphasiz- 
ing much  that  is  highest  and  best  in  the  life  of  the  spirit. 
Directly  or  indirectly,  he  left  a  permanent  impress  on  Prot- 
estantism, both  in  Europe  and  America,  and  even  ecclesias- 
tics who  have  refused  to  make  any  terms  with  Modernism 
and  for  whom  an  unchanging  order  is  the  governing  power  of 
faith,  have  felt  to  some  extent  the  vivifying  touch  of  this 
luminary  of  his  age. 

The  new  blossoming  of  the  European  mind,  largely  due 
to  the  fundamental  brain  work  of  German  metaphysicians 
and    scholars,    began    to    manifest    itself    in    science    and 

1  Alexander  V.  G.  Allen:  "The  Continuity  of  Christian  Thought"; 
p.  397. 


410   THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

history.  The  pubHcation  of  Sir  Charles  I.yeH's  "Principles 
of  Geology"  heralded  the  advent  of  Evolution,  with  its 
immense  range  of  biological  facts,  and  caused  nothing  short 
of  a  panic  in  those  circles  already  gravely  perturbed  by  po- 
litical and  theological  liberalism.  Its  "wild  theories  and  pre- 
posterous conclusions,"  which  were  more  easily  denounced 
than  answered,  contravened  the  cosmogonies  of  Genesis, 
and  the  coincidence  of  the  appearance  of  Lyell's  volume  with 
the  formation  of  the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement 
of  Science  seemed  darkly  ominous  to  the  orthodox.  To  make 
matters  worse,  the  book  steadily  won  approval  from  experts 
competent  to  judge,  and  marked  the  beginning  of  a  serious 
attempt  to  arrange  scientific  phenomena  in  more  coordi- 
nated forms.  Lyell's  work  and  its  extensive  implications 
altered  the  whole  tone  of  Darwin's  thinking,  who  declared 
that  but  for  the  inspiration  derived  from  Lyell  his  own  con- 
clusions might  never  have  been  obtained.  "I  have  long 
wished,"  he  wrote  in  1845,  "not  so  much  for  your  sake  as  for 
my  own  feelings  of  honesty,  to  acknowledge  more  plainly 
than  by  mere  reference  how  much  I  owe  to  you.  Those 
authors  who,  like  you,  educate  people's  minds,  as  well  as 
teach  them  special  facts,  can  never,  I  should  think,  have  full 
justice  done  to  them  except  by  posterity."  These  inquiries, 
while  possessing  the  romantic  interest  attached  to  excursions 
in  hitherto  unknown  fields,  were  also  conspicuous  for  their 
intellectual  impressiveness  and  fidelity  to  detail.  They  were 
vindicated  in  a  revolution  foreshadowed  by  Newman  in  his 
"Essay  on  the  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine,"  and 
which  gave  coherence  and  meaning  to  the  accumulations  of 
natural  knowledge.  The  entire  field  of  human  effort  acquired 
new  promise  and  dignity.  For  although  geology  and  biology 
were  the  cradles  of  the  evolutionary  hypothesis,  its  ramifica- 
tions spread  rapidly  into  many  other  spheres.  Statesmen, 
sociologists,  reformers,  and  theologians  were  inoculated  with 
the  theory  of  progressive  development  and  determined  to 
parallel  its  story  in  nature  with  a  similar  unfolding  in  politics, 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  411 

ethics,  and  religion.  In  directing  the  gaze  of  mankind  toward 
an  ideal  all  the  more  attractive  because  its  frontiers  were  lost 
in  the  radiance  of  a  possible  perfectibility,  Lyell  and  Dar- 
win did  the  greatest  service  men  can  render  to  their  fellows. 
They  showed  that  creation  and  man  were  not  isolated  units, 
that  the  creature  had  a  princely  inheritance  from  an  inter- 
minable past,  the  recesses  of  which  were  beyond  discernment, 
and  its  irrepressible  energies  mobilized  in  himself. 

Thomas  Carlyle,  who,  together  with  Wordsworth,  directed 
some  of  these  conceptions  into  popular  channels,  was  perhaps 
the  most  important  literary  accessory  in  the  revolt  against  tra- 
dition. While  scornful  of  conventional  opinions,  he  was  at 
heart  hostile  toward  materialism.  As  an  author,  virile,  vehe- 
ment and  iconoclastic  in  temper ;  as  a  thinker,  intuitional  rather 
than  logical,  impatient  with  the  letter  and  mechanism  of  his- 
tory, this  shaggy  Titan,  who  was  so  eager  for  the  realities  and 
forces  underneath  outward  events,  gave  a  more  cosmopolitan 
range  to  English  literature.  Carlyle  was  so  constructed  that 
"  the  prophet  who  reveals  and  the  hero  who  acts  could  be  his 
only  guides."  He  stirred  the  lethargy  and  aroused  the  resent- 
ment of  his  readers  by  his  antagonisms  rather  than  by  his 
sympathies.  His  habitual  eccentricities  of  style  and  method, 
and  his  absorption  in  the  higher  learning  of  the  philosophers 
who  resided  between  the  Rhine  and  the  Oder  offended  more 
sedate  and  careful  scholars,  who  doubted  the  soundness  of 
many  of  his  conclusions.  But  these  shortcomings  and 
prejudices  were  compensated  by  his  reverence  for  truth,  his 
imaginative  grasp  of  facts,  and  his  fascinating  humanness. 
His  superabundant  vitality  and  candor  gave  the  first  clear 
expression  to  the  struggling  heart  of  a  desolate  yet  aspiring 
time,  making  a  clean  breast  of  many  repressed  unbeliefs  and 
noble  hatreds.  He  generated  a  tempest  which  swept  away 
some  shams,  whether  in  Church  or  State,  and  cleared  the 
ground  for  affirmative  thinkers. 

Yet  so  far  from  being  purely  destructive,  he  was  always 
mindful  of  the  "Everlasting  Yea,"  and  if  he  inspired  rather 


412       THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF  OXFORD 

than  illuminated,  he  certainly  provided  an  immediate  foot- 
hold for  faith  and  loyalty  at  a  moment  when  some  ancient 
landmarks  were  being  removed.  The  infinite  nature  of 
duty  was  the  token  of  the  Divine  Presence  which  never 
forsook  him.  Only  in  submission  before  that  Presence  could 
any  worthy  freedom  be  found.  The  higher  self  within  was 
the  one  medium  of  contact  with  the  Supreme  Will.  Through 
obedience  and  renunciation  the  soul  entered  its  divine  king- 
dom. It  was  Carlyle's  powerful  presentation  of  such  truths 
as  these,  far  more  than  his  vitriolic  objurgations  against 
cant  or  the  pretensions  and  quackeries,  real  or  imaginary, 
which  he  detested,  that  gave  him  a  tremendous  hold  upon 
his  admirers.  They  saw  in  him  the  survival  of  a  moral 
code  inherited  from  generations  of  honest  God-fearing 
ancestors,  at  first  stifled  by  doubt  and  questioning,  and  then 
majestically  quickened  and  purified  under  the  stress  of 
deepened  insight  and  the  sense  of  high  responsibility.  How 
much  they  owed  to  him  cannot  be  easily  computed,  but  that 
his  early  writings  may  be  reckoned  among  the  chief  forces 
of  liberation  working  in  those  years  is  beyond  dispute. 
''Whilst  the  schools  of  the  Economists  were  laboriously  de- 
molishing the  homes  of  prejudice  and  superstition,  Carlyle's 
battering  ram  made  such  a  noisy  assault  upon  them  that 
all  were  bound  to  listen."  ^  His  discordant  summons  to 
sincerity  was  heard  in  every  walk  of  life,  rousing  opposition 
as  well  as  discipleship,  and  further  disquieting  the  ecclesias- 
tical centers  which  were  already  alarmed  by  what  they 
deemed  the  impious  aberrations  of  the  world. 

Thus  the  period  was  one  of  confusion,  in  which  devout  men 
were  timid,  nervous,  and,  for  the  most  part,  resourceless. 
The  transposition  of  values  had  driven  Wordsworth  from  his 
earlier  radicalism  into  a  practical  alliance  with  the  Tories. 
The  evolution  of  his  opinions  was  both  straightforward  and 
intelligible,  but  it  affected  his  productive    powers,    which 

*  F.  Warre  Cornish:  "A  History  of  the  English  Church  in  the  Nine- 
teenth Century"  ;  Vol.  I,  p.  196. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  413 

henceforth  were  intermittent  in  their  effusions.  The  social 
anarchies  of  France  as  represented  by  the  "Terror,"  and 
Wilham  Godwin's  "Enquiry  Concerning  PoHtical  Justice," 
which  was  calmly  subversive  of  marriage  and  similar  in- 
stitutions, compelled  Wordsworth  to  abandon  his  liberalism 
in  behalf  of  the  quiet  of  an  ideal  state,  in  which  the  bonds 
of  domestic  piety  were  strengthened  by  the  contemplation  of 
God  in  nature,  thus  conserving  .the  spirit  of  the  simple 
society  in  which  he  had  been  bred.^ 

Beset  on  every  side  by  a  renascent  philosophy,  theology, 
science,  and  literature,  churchmen  in  Germany  and  France, 
and  later  in  England,  saw  their  systems  subjected  to  severe 
ordeals;  the  past,  at  the  instigation  of  the  growth  of 
knowledge,  rose  up  to  grapple  with  its  own  progenies  in  the 
present.  The  heart  of  things  as  they  were  was  ruthlessly 
torn  open  and  scrutinized.  What  existing  party  could  abide 
the  hour  of  reckoning  ?  The  polite  and  titled  cliques  which 
loathed  democracy  were  on  the  defensive.  The  prelates 
and  dignitaries  of  the  Establishment  scented  danger  every- 
where. For  dreamers  and  poets  the  day  of  Utopia  had 
dawned.  Would  the  Church  herself,  as  the  last  hope,  prove 
equal  to  the  emergency,  or  be  made  a  show  of  in  the  open  as 
natively  incapable  of  readjustment  to  its  necessities? 


Ill 

The  answer  must  be  sought  in  the  condition  of  the  two 
predominant  parties  into  which  Anglicanism,  speaking 
generally,  was  divided.  These  were  known  respectively  as 
High  and  Low  Churchmen.  The  former  included  non-jurors, 
other  irreconcilables,  and  a  large  proportion  of  the  ortho- 
dox, a  term  applied  to  those  who  accepted  the  Reforma- 
tion and  the  Prayer  Book,  and  who,  although  sacramental 
in  theory,  were  content  with  a  minimum  of  ritual  and  observ- 

1  " Dictionary  of  National  Biography";  Vol.  LXIII,  article  on  Words- 
worth. , 


414      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

ance.  The  Low  Churchmen  consisted  of  both  Evangelicals 
and  Latitudinarians.  Indeed,  at  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  these  terms  were  loosely  used,  and  there  was 
no  very  wide  divergence,  either  in  doctrine  or  practice,  be- 
tween the  two  main  groups  or  their  subdivisions.  Alexander 
Knox  observed  that  the  old  High  Church  race  was  fatigued, 
the  majority  being  men  of  the  world,  if  not  of  yesterday. 
They  boasted  their  direct  succession  from  a  series  of  learned 
divines  beginning  with  Hooker  and  ending  with  Waterland, 
who  embodied  for  them  the  authentic  and  unchanging  mind 
of  their  communion.  Passionless,  scholarly,  contemptuous 
of  zeal,  content  to  take  things  as  they  found  them,  they 
coveted  reasonableness  and  repudiated  emotionalism.  Their 
preaching  spent  itself  in  a  balanced  presentation  of  Carolinian 
theology  and  in  a  steady  effort  to  avoid  every  kind  of  ex- 
travagance. 

"The  better  members,"  says  Dean  Church,  "were  highly 
cultivated,  benevolent  men,  intolerant  of  irregularities  both 
of  doctrine  and  life,  whose  lives  were  governed  by  an  un- 
ostentatious but  solid  and  unfaltering  piety,  ready  to  burst 
forth,  on  occasion,  into  fervid  devotion."  ^  Their  whole- 
some though  restrained  ministry  was  too  frequently  coun- 
teracted by  pluralist  and  fortune-loving  brethren,  many 
of  whom  were  nothing  more  than  country  gentlemen  in 
Holy  Orders  who  used  the  advantages  of  their  calling  for  the 
pursuit  of  personal  interests  and  pleasiu^es.  Thanks  to  the 
regenerating  effects  of  Tractarianism,  this  type  of  cleric  has 
long  since  disappeared,  and  nothing  more  than  a  misty 
reminiscence  of  the  sporting  parson,  or  the  clergyman  who 
held  his  office  as  a  sort  of  perquisite,  lingers  in  rural  regions. 

Although  their  number  was  far  smaller  than  has  been  com- 
monly supposed,  the  Evangelicals  furnished  the  prevailing 
religious  and  philanthropic  tendencies  of  the  first  generations 
of  the  century.  They  were  related  to  the  Revival  from  which 
they  took  their  name,  with  two  very  marked  differences ; 

1  "The  Oxford  Movement"  ;   p.  10. 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  415 

that  they  owned  no  allegiance  to  Methodism  as  a  sect,  and 
accepted  the  Calvinism  of  Whitefield,  Toplady,  and  Hill  as 
against  the  Arminianism  of  Wesley  and  Fletcher.  High 
Churchmen  accused  them,  not  without  reason,  of  being 
morbid  pietists,  whose  jaundiced  vision  regarded  an  enjoy- 
able world  as  a  dreary  wilderness  overshadowed  by  impend- 
ing doom.  This  antipathy  was  too  often  synonymous  with 
a  mistaken  hatred  of  all  that  made  life  beautiful,  combined 
with  a  quick  appreciation  of  whatever  added  to  its  material 
comfort.  Their  favorite  teachers  and  guides  were  such  men 
as  Hervey,  Romaine,  Cecil,  Newton,  Thomas  Scott,  and 
Charles  Simeon.  The  Evangelicals  were  students  of  the 
Bible,  deeply  versed  in  its  contents,  pronounced  literalists, 
experts  in  the  doctrinal  views  they  accepted,  and  frequently 
more  than  equal  to  the  controversialists  they  were  called 
upon  to  meet.  Nevertheless,  they  were  too  circumscribed  in 
range  and  deficient  in  imagination  and  sympathy  to  supply 
an  adequate  theology  for  the  age.  "The  history  of  the 
Evangelical  Revival  illustrates  the  limits  of  religious  move- 
ments which  spring  up  in  the  absence  of  any  vigorous  rivals 
without  a  definite  philosophical  basis.  They  flourish  for  a 
time  because  they  satisfy  a  real  emotional  craving ;  but  they 
have  within  them  the  seeds  of  decay.  A  form  of  faith  which 
has  no  charms  for  thinkers  ends  by  repelling  from  itself  even 
the  thinkers  who  have  grown  up  under  its  influence.  In  the 
second  generation  the  able  disciples  revolted  against  the 
strict  dogmatism  of  their  fathers,  and  sought  for  some  more 
liberal  form  of  creed,  or  some  more  potent  intellectual 
narcotic.  .  .  .  When  the  heart  usurps  the  functions  of  the 
head,  even  a  progressive  development  will  appear  to  be 
retrograde."  ^  Their  instruction  was  subordinated  to  the 
dogma  of  election  and  its  corollaries,  insistence  upon  which 
engendered  that  aversion  felt  at  Oxford  toward  Calvinism, 
where  it  supplied  one  of  the  first  incentives  to  the  Tractarian 

1  Sir  Leslie  Stephen:    "History  of  English  Thought  in  the  Eighteenth 
Century";    Vol.  II,  pp.  431  and  435. 


416      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

Movement.  Their  fatalism  inclined  many  of  them  to 
Premillenarianism  as  a  refuge  from  the  approaching  catas- 
trophes of  the  present  dispensation.  The  breadth  and  verve 
of  Luther,  or  the  logical  array  and  incisiveness  of  Calvin,  or 
the  "platform  of  discipline"  of  Knox  and  the  earlier  Puritans 
was  not  in  them  nor  in  their  followers. 

Social  conditions  had  slowly  changed  their  once  unbending 
bearing  in  an  environment  which  laid  stress  on  what  was 
fastidious  or  ingenious  or  genteel :  almost  insensibly  they 
inhaled  the  subtle  poison  of  these  requirements,  and  devel- 
oped an  accommodating  spirit  toward  them.  Despite  de- 
terioration, however,  the  more  intense  Evangelicals  warred 
against  prevalent  evils  in  Church  and  State,  thus  incurring 
proscription  as  enthusiasts  and  bigots.  Their  preaching 
lent  weight  to  the  charge;  it  abounded  in  credal  phrases 
which  had  lost  their  significance,  and  left  untouched  large 
and  vital  needs  of  human  life.  References  to  ethical  obli- 
gation and  the  necessity  for  righteous  conduct  were  dis- 
paraged if  they  seemed  to  clash  with  salvation  by  faith  and 
for  the  elect  alone.  The  result  was  that  their  homilies 
seldom  ventured  beyond  the  rudiments  of  the  Gospel,  pre- 
ferring the  well-worn  track  of  a  call  to  repentance  and  a 
conditional  assurance  of  pardon.^  Arrogant  exclusiveness,  a 
sure  sign  of  decay,  began  to  show  itself  among  them.  They 
set  themselves  apart  as  the  truly  religious,  the  chosen  depos- 
itaries of  Christian  verity,  culture,  and  experience,  with  a 
dialect  of  their  own ;  and  were  inclined  to  regard  those  who 
were  not  of  their  persuasion  as  worldlings  and  soothsayers. 

It  was  but  one  remove  from  this  temper  to  the  materialism 
which  believed  in  making  the  best  of  both  worlds,  projecting 
the  theory  of  rewards  and  punishments  into  the  future  with 
reckless  profusion,  and  emphasizing  it  as  the  chief  stimulus 

*  Sydney  Smith  wrote  :  "The  great  object  of  modern  sermons  is  to  hazard 
nothing.  Their  characteristic  is  decent  debility,  which  alike  guards  their 
authors  from  ludicrous  errors  and  precludes  them  from  striking  beauties. 
Every  man  of  sense  in  taking  up  an  English  sermon  expects  to  find  it  a 
tedious  essay." 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  417 

to  godly  living.  Their  progenitors  had  braved  the  anger  of 
Georgian  bishops  by  exhortations  and  practices  that  drew 
all  classes  to  their  churches.  The  descendants  were  found 
in  the  rich  and  fashionable  pulpits  of  London  and  the 
provinces.  Yet,  notwithstanding  this  decline  in  value 
and  breadth  of  service,  a  large  contingent  of  Anglicans 
still  clung  to  the  Low  Church,  cherishing  its  devout  in- 
heritance and  earnestly  expecting  a  renewal  of  those  gifts 
and  graces  which  were  now  its  fondest  traditions.  Famous 
divines  strengthened  and  adorned  the  wider  ranks  of 
Evangelicalism,  but  few  such  were  found  within  the  pale  of 
the  Establishment.  Robert  Hall,  John  Foster,  William  Jay 
of  Bath,  Edward  Irving,  the  eccentric  genius,  and  in  Scotland, 
Thomas  Chalmers,  represented  the  vigor  and  fearlessness  of 
an  earlier  day  and  maintained  the  excellence  of  Evangelical 
preaching. 

It  should  be  added  that,  notwithstanding  its  waning  fires, 
the  party  conferred  upon  humanity  some  of  its  foremost 
benefactors.  The  men  and  women  whose  unstinted  labors 
and  sacrifices  were  instrumental  in  founding  the  foreign 
missionary  propaganda,  in  obtaining  clemency  for  the  Hindu 
and  freedom  for  the  slave,  in  abolishing  cruel  penal  laws 
and  purifying  noisome  prisons,  as  a  rule,  owed  allegiance  to 
the  Clapham  sect  vividly  described  by  Macaulay,  or  to  its 
lesser  rival,  the  Clapton  Sect,  and  were  active  and  influential 
members  of  the  evangelical  wing  of  the  Church. 

Standing  apart  from  High  and  Low  Churchmen  were  cer- 
tain thinkers  and  writers  to  whom  the  term  Broad  Churchmen 
has  since  been  conveniently  applied.  These  may  be  divided 
into  two  sections,  the  philosophical,  which  began  with  Samuel 
Taylor  Coleridge  and  passed  on  to  such  typical  divines  as 
Frederick  Denison  Maurice,  and  later,  Brooke  Foss  Westcott ; 
and  the  critical  or  historical,  represented  by  Henry  Hart 
Milman,  Newell  Connop  Thirlwall,  Julius  Charles  Hare, 
Thomas  Arnold,  and  Arthur  Penrhyn  Stanley.  The  Platonic 
gospel  of  Coleridge  discarded  the  apologetic  of  Paley,  which 
2e 


418      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

found  all  good  in  happiness,  and  the  empiricism  of  Locke, 
which  posited  all  knowledge  in  phenomena  as  derived  by 
reflection  from  what  the  senses  reveal.  With  Schleiermacher, 
Coleridge  traced  the  sources  of  religious  faith  to  experience, 
but  he  also  affirmed  the  existence  of  an  intellectual  organ  for 
the  apprehension  of  God.  This  he  defined  as  the  Reason, 
which  was  loftier  in  nature,  and  dealt  with  higher  truths  than 
the  Understanding.  For  while  the  Understanding  was  wholly 
dependent  upon  perception  for  its  data,  and  generalized  from 
the  material  presented  by  the  senses,  the  Reason  was  con- 
cerned intuitively  and  immediately  with  necessary  and 
universal  truths.  The  former  operated  in  the  world  of  time 
and  space,  and  was  in  a  measure  shared  by  animals,  whose 
instinct  was  only  a  lower  kind  of  "adaptive  intelligence." 
The  latter  fulfilled  its  office  in  the  spiritual  sphere,  and  its 
presence  in  man  proved  his  affinity  with  a  supernatural  order 
as  certainly  as  the  Understanding  related  him  to  the  physical 
creation.  The  Reason  had  two  functions  :  the  cognitive,  from 
which  proceeded  all  ontological  thinking,  ideas  of  cause, 
unity,  infinitude,  and  the  like;  and  the  active,  from  which 
arose  the  postulates  of  moral  action,  such  as  obligation, 
freedom,  and  personality. 

This,  of  course,  was  another  way  of  stating  Kant's  resolu- 
tion of  the  Reason  into  its  components,  the  speculative  and 
the  practical,  and  the  indebtedness  of  Coleridge  to  the  founder 
of  the  critical  philosophy  is  everywhere  apparent.  From 
Kant  and  Schelling  his  metaphysic  received  its  primary 
impulse. 

Both  functions  of  the  Reason,  argued  Coleridge,  were 
fulfilled  in  definite  religious  faith.  The  speculative  element 
could  give  the  conception  of  an  Absolute  Being,  but  since  its 
content  was  purely  ontological  it  could  not  predicate  His 
character.  On  the  other  hand  the  practical  element,  or 
moral  consciousness,  revealed  the  Absolute  as  the  Holy  One, 
who  was  "visible"  in  that  degree  in  which  the  perceiving 
heart  was  pure.     The  Reason  which  discharged  this  double 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  419 

function  was  not  a  detached  personal  faculty,  but  the  imma- 
nence in  human  apprehension  of  the  Divine  Reason,  "  the  light 
which  lighteth  every  man,"  the  link  between  the  Creator  and 
the  creature,  and  the  essential  medium  for  that  fellowship 
which  apprises  men  of  spiritual  realities.  Since  the  basic  ideas 
of  religion  were  derived  from  the  Reason,  thus  understood, 
it  followed  that  the  deistic  view  of  "natural  religion"  was 
precluded  as  a  contradiction  in  terms. 

The  psychological  analysis  of  the  soul  was  supplemented  by 
the  reverse  process.  Having  worked  upwards  from  the  data 
of  human  consciousness  to  the  Divine  Being,  Coleridge  pro- 
ceeded on  a  descending  path  from  the  Absolute  One  to  His 
manifestations  in  the  finite.  The  Logos  or  Son  of  the  Father 
was  the  one  mediator  between  God  and  the  universe,  sus- 
taining cosmic  relations  to  all  that  is,  directing  the  eternal 
process  in  history,  and  inspiring  the  soul  with  moral  and 
spiritual  truth.  In  Jesus,  the  Son  attained  a  concrete  per- 
sonal expression,  which  while  specialized  in  a  profoundly 
impressive  manner,  was  neither  exclusive  nor  final  in 
the  sense  that  He  had  withdrawn  from  the  rest  of  mankind. 
Humanity  as  a  whole  felt  the  throbbings  of  His  light  and  life, 
without  Whom  nothing  could  exist.  Thus  the  particular 
Incarnation  the  Gospels  recorded  revealed  and  realized  the  all- 
pervading  truth  that  the  race  was  the  offspring  of  God,  Who 
through  self-manifestation  and  utmost  sacrifice  ever  sought 
to  reclaim  and  reconcile  His  errant  children. 

The  apprehension  of  this  fundamental  truth  made  possible 
the  new  birth  which  was  the  chief  purpose  of  the  Son's 
redemptive  mission,  and  which  consisted,  not  in  an  improved 
self,  but  in  "a  Divine  other-than-self."  The  mind  of  Christ 
blended  with  the  mind  of  believers,  and  a  life  of  the 
Spirit  was  inaugurated,  a  life  of  trust  and  love,  a  life  of 
closest  and  most  intimate  communion  with  the  Father, 
through  the  Son.  The  two  paths  of  ontological  dialectic  and 
psychological  examination  converged  to  the  point  where  God 
and  man  met  in  a  living  union.     The  powerless  abstractions 


420      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

of  deism  gave  place  to  a  Holy  Father  whose  love,  worship, 
and  service  evoked  and  satisfied  the  deepest  feelings  of 
regenerate  hearts,  which  intuitively  demanded  a  Personal 
Deity  rather  than  a  principle  as  the  source  of  their  salvation 
and  the  center  of  their  faith. 

If  this  Christianized  Platonism  was  a  reaction  from  the 
sterile  thinking  and  materialized  necessity  of  current  philos- 
ophies, it  was  no  less  opposed  to  some  main  articles  of 
the  reigning  Calvinistic  theology.  The  opposition  was 
interpretative  rather  than  negative.  Coleridge  admitted 
the  fact  of  sin  and  the  consequent  alienation  of  every  soul 
from  the  Everlasting  Will,  so  that  man  was  always  the  object 
of  a  necessary  redemption.  But  Calvinism  had  formulated  a 
doctrine  of  Original  Sin  issuing  in  that  hereditary  depravity 
which  infected  the  entire  race  at  birth.  Upon  this  it  pro- 
ceeded to  construct  a  scheme  of  atonement,  viewed  as  a 
propitiation  of  the  wrath  of  Divine  justice  by  means  of  the 
penalty  which  fell  upon  Christ.  Sin,  contended  Coleridge, 
was  a  moral  not  a  natural  fact,  and  therefore  could  not  be 
born  in  man,  but  must  be  the  outcome  of  his  own  volition : 
the  only  Original  Sin  was  that  which  each  man  himself 
originated.  The  aim  of  redemption  was  not  to  discharge  an 
ancestral  debt  which  involved  all  men,  but  to  deliver  them 
from  the  dominion  of  iniquity  which  had  its  seat  in  the  de- 
flected will ;   in  brief,  to  recreate  them  in  Christ  Jesus. 

In  the  matter  of  Biblical  criticism,  Coleridge  sympathized 
with  the  historico-rationalistic  methods  of  Germany.  His 
system,  like  Schleiermacher's,  was  sufficiently  expansive  to 
incorporate  the  results  of  the  new  scholarship  without  detri- 
ment to  the  objectives  of  faith,  as  he  understood  them.  Too 
susceptible  to  impressions  of  various  kinds  to  be  always  con- 
sistent, too  mystical  and  remote  to  be  always  clear,  neverthe- 
less Coleridge  imparted  a  needed  impetus  to  the  spiritualizing 
of  theology  in  England,  where  he  was  esteemed  by  his  dis- 
ciples as  the  greatest  religious  thinker  of  his  time.  Just  so 
surely  as  Carlyle  widened  and  deepened  the  insular  channels 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  421 

of  literature,  so  surely  Coleridge,  notwithstanding  his  occa- 
sional obliquities,  challenged  the  champions  of  an  orthodoxy 
which  had  hidden  behind  the  authority  of  the  Church  or  the 
Bible  and  used  the  medium  of  a  hidebound  theology.  New- 
man, speaking  for  many  others  who  agreed  with  him  in  little 
else,  protested  against  Coleridge's  speculations,  and  said 
that  they  took  for  granted  a  liberty  which  no  Christian  could 
tolerate,  and  carried  him  to  conclusions  which  were  often 
heathen  rather  than  Christian.  Yet  he  admitted  that 
Coleridge  "  installed  a  higher  philosophy  into  inquiring  minds 
than  they  had  hitherto  been  accustomed  to  accept.  In  this 
way  he  made  trial  of  his  age,  and  succeeded  in  interesting  its 
genius  in  the  cause  of  Catholic  truth."  ^ 

Prominent  among  the  critical  and  historical  group  of 
scholars  was  Henry  Hart  Milman,  who,  after  a  most  cred- 
itable career  at  Oxford,  became  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral, 
London,  in  1849.  While  retaining  some  of  the  intellectual 
habits  of  the  eighteenth  century,  Milman  was  markedly 
friendly  to  the  larger  ideas  of  the  succeeding  era,  holding 
himself  free  to  accept  and  spread  their  light,  however  trying 
it  might  prove  to  older  perspectives.  His  cautious  and 
independent  nature  allowed  nothing  to  pass  without  exam- 
ination, and  he  w^as  too  devoted  to  truth  to  accept  or  reject 
conclusions  merely  because  of  their  age  or  novelty.  If  he 
was  not  exactly  the  forerunner  of  Higher  Criticism  in  Eng- 
land, he  was  a  pioneer  in  that  school  of  criticism  which  has 
since  developed  fruitful  inquiries  in  many  directions,  and 
especially  in  the  study  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  His  "History 
of  the  Jews,"  which  appeared  in  1829,  marked  an  epoch  in 
the  historical  scholarship  of  Anglicanism,  and  was  at  least 
fifty  years  in  advance  of  the  times.  Dean  Stanley,  who  was 
in  some  respects  Milman's  successor,  described  the  work  as 
"the  first  decisive  inroad  of  German  theology  into  England, 
the  first  palpable  indication  that  the  Bible  could  be  treated 
like  any  other  book ;  that  the  characters  and  events  of  sacred 

'  "Apologia"  ;   p.  97. 


422      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

history  could  be  treated  at  once  critically  and  reverently." 
Its  inferences  and  suggestions,  even  more  than  its  actual 
statements,  led  to  such  a  furore  that  the  publication  of  the 
manuals  in  which  it  was  one  of  a  series  came  to  a  sudden 
end.  Oxford  joined  in  the  outcry  against  it,  and  Newman 
reviewed  it  adversely  in  the  British  Critic.  Once  the 
right  of  entry  into  the  hitherto  inclosed  field  of  Biblical 
history  was  ceded,  important  consequences  were  bound  to 
follow.  Philosophers  and  theologians  might  indulge  in 
ceaseless  disputes  without  arriving  at  any  agreement ;  under 
Milman's  treatment  the  records  of  Scripture  were  no  longer 
matters  of  opinion,  but  of  fact,  dependent  upon  accurate 
knowledge  derived  from  the  scientific  study  of  their  contents. 
To  men  who  held  that  the  inspired  writings  were  immune 
from  research,  his  method  appeared  nothing  better  than  an 
abomination  of  German  infidelity  introduced  into  the  English 
Church  at  a  moment  when  she  was  imperilled  by  a  crumbling 
ethic  and  a  vanishing  faith. 

The  slumbering  tenacities  of  the  Universities  w^ere  now 
slowly  awakening.  At  Cambridge  those  who  resented  the 
dogmatism  of  arrogant  ignorance,  and  advocated  a  sound 
and  reasonable  view  of  life,  formed  a  coterie  of  better  spirits 
known  as  the  Apostles  Club.  Impatient  with  the  banalities 
of  purblind  regularity,  Thirlwall,  Hare,  and  Maurice,^  to- 
gether with  others  not  already  named,  such  as  John  Sterling, 
Adam  Sedgwick,  Richard  Chenevix  Trench,  Arthur  Hallam, 
Alfred  Tennyson,  and  Charles  Buller,  attached  themselves 
either  to  Coleridge  or  to  more  spacious  beliefs  in  politics 
and  religion.  They  earnestly  desired  a  dispassionate 
and  penetrative  spiritual  life  and  thought,  and,  while  loyal 
to  the  substance  of  Christian  teaching,  asked  for  a  searching 
revision  of  current  creeds  which  would  render  them  accept- 
able to  changed  conditions.  Thus  the  clerical  edicts  against 
further  quest  for  truth  wrought  effectively  in  the  opposite 
direction. 

*  Maurice  belonged  to  both  Universities. 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  423 

Thirlwall,  afterwards  Bishop  of  St.  Davids,  was  con- 
spicuous even  among  these  eminent  men  as  one  of  the 
princeliest  intellects  of  the  century.  With  Hare,  who  could 
not  be  assigned  to  any  particular  theological  cult,  he 
labored  to  supplant  the  formulae  then  in  vogue  by  more 
accurate  and  progressive  principles.  Among  their  many 
services  in  this  direction  they  collaborated  in  the  translation 
of  Niebuhr's  "History  of  Rome,"  which  Hare  supported  by 
his  "Vindication  of  Niebuhr"  against  the  charge  of  skepti- 
cism. In  1825  Thirlwall  published  Schleiermacher's  "  Critical 
Essay  on  the  Gospel  of  St.  Luke,"  containing  an  introduc- 
tion that  revealed  his  extensive  acquaintance  with  German 
theology,  a  field  of  learning  as  yet  hardly  known  to 
English  students.  Thirlwall's  endowments  and  catho- 
licity of  outlook  made  him  a  competent  and  trustworthy 
guide  for  those  who  cared  to  follow  him.  In  1834  he 
petitioned  and  wTote  in  favor  of  the  admission  of  Free 
Churchmen  to  university  degrees.  He  also  condemned  the 
collegiate  lectures  in  divinity  and  compulsory  attendance  at 
Chapel,  "  with  its  constant  repetition  of  a  heartless  mechani- 
cal service."  This  pamphlet  was  issued  on  May  21,  1834; 
five  days  later  Dr.  Christopher  Wordsworth,  Master  of 
Trinity,  wrote  to  the  author,  asking  him  to  resign  his  appoint- 
ment as  assistant-tutor;  Thirlwall  at  once  complied. 
In  1840  Lord  Melbourne  offered  him  the  bishopric  of  St. 
Davids,  a  see  the  solitude  and  retirement  of  which  exactly 
suited  his  philosophical  and  literary  tastes.  He  rarely 
quitted  "Chaos,"  as  he  called  his  library,  except  to  attend  to 
the  duties  of  his  diocese. 

Seldom  was  a  severer  strain  of  self-suppression  necessary 
at  a  moment  when  the  natural  desire  should  have  been  to 
obtain  information,  and  to  bring  to  the  common  stock  what- 
ever of  well-considered  suggestion  or  of  legitimate  criticism 
might  be  available  for  the  attainment  of  those  reforms 
on  which  the  future  of  the  Church  depended.  Thirlwall 
was   well   qualified   to   further   such   aims,   but    his    great 


424      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

qualities  as  a  thinker  without  passion  or  prejudice,  and  the 
fearlessness  with  which  he  expressed  his  views  on  disputed 
questions,  separated  him  from  the  clergy  and  the  bishops. 
His  first  charge  was  a  broadly  conceived  defense  of  the 
Tractarians,  then  the  anathema  of  all  parties.  He  was  one 
of  the  few  prelates  who  refused  to  inhibit  Bishop  Colenso  of 
Natal  for  his  heretical  expositions  on  the  Pentateuch.  Among 
important  legislative  acts  that  won  his  approval,  of  which 
two  at  least  have  since  been  ratified  by  the  nation,  were 
the  admission  of  Jews  to  Parliament,  the  granting  of  State 
funds  for  the  Roman  Catholic  College  at  Maynooth,  and  the 
disestablishment  of  the  Anglican  Church  in  Ireland.  A  per- 
vading sanity  characterized  the  workings  of  his  mind ;  he 
humanized  the  episcopacy  of  which  he  was  an  unusual  but 
influential  member,  and  endeavored  to  secure  the  inclusive 
policy  and  action  of  the  Church  in  a  nation  emphat- 
ically Protestant,  and  to  preserve  it  from  being  controlled 
by  an  obscurantist  sacerdotalism.  Partisan  opposition  could 
not  separate  him  from  these  resolves.  His  devout  reason- 
ableness counted  for  infinitely  more  with  far-sighted  men 
and  women  than  abstract  systems  deduced  from  assumed 
first  principles.  His  massive  intelligence  and  sagacious 
judgment  were  as  deserving  of  reverence  as  the  tender  and 
fragrant  piety  of  Charles  Marriott.  The  fear  which  Words- 
worth says 

"has  a  hundred  eyes,  that  all  agree 
To  plague  her  beating  heart, " 

was  unknown  to  Connop  Thirlwall.  He  believed  in  man 
because  he  believed  supremely  in  God  and  in  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  His  will. 

While  the  genius  of  German  philosophy  was  welcomed 
by  the  Cambridge  men,  who  passed  quickly  from  admiration 
to  penetration  of  the  new  soul  and  an  understanding  of  its 
meanings,  Oxford  was  alert  under  other  forms ;  forms  less 
pliable,  less  evenly  just,  less  open  to  the  inflow  of  continental 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  425 

thought  and  the  modification  of  assured  facts :  more 
dialectical,  dogmatic,  and  imaginative.  Oriel,  in  particular, 
stood  forth  as  the  center  of  a  succession  of  more  or  less  per- 
ceptive men.  Under  Provost  Eveleigh  it  was  the  first  college 
to  throw  open  its  fellowships  to  competition  and  to  ask  for 
the  institution  of  university  class  lists.  From  the  days  of 
Copleston  to  those  of  Hampden  it  harbored  a  breadth  then 
unknown  elsewhere  in  Oxford.  Its  reputation  for  liberalism 
was  enhanced  by  a  resident  band  known  as  the  Noetics, 
who  "fought  to  the  stumps  of  their  intellects."  They  repre- 
sented the  common  loyalties  and  sympathies  of  Oxonians, 
intermingled  with  an  extensive  variety  of  gifts  and  opinions, 
and  accompanied  by  a  mutual  concession  of  the  rights  of 
inquiry.  The  evangelical,  sacerdotal,  mystical,  and  rational 
aspects  of  religion  were  freely  discussed,  and,  notwithstand- 
ing a  certain  aridity  of  mind  which  characterized  some  of  the 
Noetics,  out  of  the  ferment  they  stimulated  Tractarianism 
arose. 

The  most  prominent  figure  among  them  was  Richard 
Whately,  afterwards  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  who  had  an 
exceptional  knowledge  of  and  power  over  his  acquaintances. 
So  far  as  he  may  be  classified  at  all,  Whately  belonged  to  the 
Liberal  wing,  but  there  was  no  necessary  incompatibility 
between  his  position  and  a  definite  traditional  standpoint. 
In  fact,  his  theory  of  the  Church  was  the  acknowledged 
precursor  of  a  more  advanced  doctrine.  But  he  was  too 
original  and  self-contained  to  be  a  good  partisan.  Contem- 
porary Evangelicals  deemed  him  a  typical  Latitudinarian 
of  the  previous  century ;  High  Churchmen  rested  some  of 
their  conclusions  upon  his  premises ;  Broad  Churchmen  have 
claimed  him  as  one  of  their  founders.  His  communicating 
qualities  as  a  thinker  were  demonstrated  by  their  operation 
in  such  divergent  directions.  Upon  none  did  he  exercise 
them  more  freely,  and  for  a  time  successfully,  than  upon 
Newman,  and  the  part  Whately  played  in  his  career  will  be 
mentioned  later. 


426      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

Whatever  else  the  Noetics  questioned  they  were  con- 
vinced that  the  Church  of  England  must  change  her  course 
or  presently  be  wrecked.  The  first  to  forfend  this  eventual- 
ity, and  to  articulate  the  claims  of  High  Anglicanism,  was 
Dr.  Charles  Lloyd,  who  had  been  Sir  Robert  Peel's  tutor,  was 
appointed  in  1822  Divinity  Professor  at  Oxford,  promoted  to 
the  bishopric  of  that  see  in  1827,  and  died  in  1829.  Those 
who  resorted  to  his  lectures,  among  whom  were  Pusey,  New- 
man, Hurrell  Froude,  and  the  Wilberforces,  heard  for  the 
first  time  an  exposition  of  the  history  and  structure  of  the 
Prayer  Book  as  a  translation  and  adaptation  of  the  Missal 
and  the  Breviary.  Engrossing  contentions  with  rational- 
istic deism  had  obscured  these  antecedents  of  the  Litany, 
the  study  of  which  enabled  Lloyd's  students  to  discern  that 
the  Church  was  far  more  than  a  mere  creature  of  the  State. 

He  announced  in  a  tentative  form  the  doctrines  to  which 
the  Tractarians  were  subsequently  converted.  These  were 
afterwards  more  completely  stated  by  Newman,  who  said : 
"We  were  upholding  that  primitive  Christianity  which  was 
delivered  for  all  time  by  the  early  teachers  of  the  Church, 
and  which  was  registered  and  attested  in  the  Anglican  formu- 
laries and  by  Anglican  divines.  That  ancient  religion  had 
well-nigh  faded  out  of  the  land  throughout  the  political 
changes  of  the  last  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and  it  must 
be  restored.  It  would  be,  in  fact,  a  second  Reformation  — ■ 
a  better  Reformation  —  for  it  would  be  a  return  not  to  the 
sixteenth  century,  but  to  the  seventeenth."  ^ 

This  transformation  of  the  nature  and  claims  of  the 
Anglican  Communion  insisted  upon  her  place  in  the 
Church  Universal  as  an  organized  society  founded  by  her 
Divine  Lord,  independently  of  the  will  of  the  State.  She 
was  regarded  as  the  one  true  and  sufficient  source,  in  Eng- 
land and  among  English  speaking  men,  of  instruction  in 
faith,  worship,  and  morals.  The  spiritual  authority  con- 
ferred by  Christ  upon  the  Apostles  was,  under  the  guidance 

1  "Apologia"  ;   p.  43. 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  427 

of  the  Holy  Spirit,  transmitted  by  them  to  their  successors, 
to  be  exercised  in  conformity  with  the  original  commission. 
Its  discipline  and  edification  were  the  sole  prerogatives  of 
the  bishops,  who  maintained  by  ordination  an  unbroken 
line  of  descent  from  the  New  Testament  Church,  as  a  solemn 
trust  belonging  solely  to  them  and  to  the  priesthood  which, 
to  use  the  cryptic  speech  of  High  Church  clerics,  had  the 
inalienable  power  of  the  keys.  They  and  they  alone  were 
entitled  to  administer  the  Sacraments  as  the  appointed  means 
of  regenerating  and  renewing  grace. 

These  theories  minified  the  Evangelical  principle  which 
treated  the  community  or  the  Church  as  secondary  and  placed 
the  individual  face  to  face  with  God.  They  magnified  the 
external  and  corporate  existence  of  the  Church  as  opposed 
to  the  purely  internal  life  of  the  believer.  The  fact  that 
attenuated  catenas  of  this  kind  were  out  of  date  as  bonds 
of  union  was  not  known  to  the  Tractarians.  Their  idea  of 
origins  has  since  succumbed  to  historical  evidence,  which 
takes  the  question  no  farther  back  than  the  cautious  state- 
ment of  the  Ordinal  that  the  three  orders  of  bishops,  presby- 
ters, and  deacons  existed  from  the  time  of  the  Apostles. 
Even  at  that  they  were  limited  to  the  precedent  of  St.  John 
and  the  region  of  Asia  Minor.  As  to  whether  the  ordination 
was  of  the  esse  of  the  Church  or  only  of  the  bene  esse,  An- 
glican divines  could  be  quoted  in  both  directions.  Hall, 
Taylor,  Laud,  Montague,  Gauden,  Barrow,  Beveridge,  Hicks, 
Brett,  Hughes,  Daubeny,  Van  Mildert,  and  Heber  ranged 
themselves  on  the  side  of  the  necessity  of  the  episcopate. 
Against  them  were  Hooker,  Andrewes,  Usher,  Cosiri,  Leigh- 
ton,  Burnet,  Sherlock,  and  Thorp.  Non-episcopal  orders  are 
now  described,  even  by  High  Churchmen,  as  irregular  rather 
than  invalid.  The  difference  is  significant,  and  while  the 
Church  of  England  stands  for  episcopacy  with  resolute  deter- 
mination, it  evinces  more  reasonableness  than  did  the  more 
ardent  Tractarian  advocates  of  the  theory. 

The  bishops  of  the  first  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century 


428      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

bore  no  resemblance  to  some  of  the  magnates  whose 
names  have  just  been  quoted.  The  long  tenure  of 
Latitudinarianism  had  demoralized  their  spiritual  force 
and  leadership.  Many  among  them  had  been  appointed  for 
political  or  family  reasons :  once  enthroned,  they  subsided 
into  their  natural  insignificance,  and  it  was  left  to  Samuel 
Wilberforce  to  become  the  restorer  of  their  office.  The 
early  Tractarians  rendered  them  submissive  obedience  until 
it  was  clear  that  they  did  not  propose  to  secure  that  free- 
dom of  speech  and  action  for  the  Church  which  was  necessary 
to  her  welfare.  Yet  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  bishops 
shared  the  temper  of  the  nation,  which  was  frankly  Erastian 
and  anti-Catholic.  The  English  people  had  seen  unmoved  a 
series  of  religious  and  ecclesiastical  revolutions,  facilitated  and 
encouraged  by  their  own  indifference.  Henry  VIII,  by  his  will 
alone,  sealed  the  national  faith  and  prescribed  the  forms  of 
the  Church;  Edward  VI  abolished  the  Catholic  doctrine 
his  father  preferred,  and  brought  in  an  undiluted  Protestan- 
tism, while  Mary's  accession  was  the  signal  for  that  rehabilita- 
tion of  Papal  authority  against  which  her  sister  Elizabeth  in 
turn  rebelled.  At  the  time  in  question,  apart  from  a  few 
scattered  clergymen  and  enthusiasts  of  Oxford  there  seemed 
to  be  no  desire  for  changes,  least  of  all  for  such  as  offended 
the  strongest  instincts  of  the  people.  The  bishops  believed  it 
their  duty  to  maintain  the  dignity  of  the  Crown  from  which 
they  had  received  their  preferment :  to  leave  authoritative 
reforms  to  the  government,  and  to  administer  the  existing 
order  as  they  found  it.  Although  at  fault  in  their  neg- 
lect of  spiritual  affairs  and  in  their  excessive  subservience 
to  the  State,  they  were  not  without  justification  for  the 
policy  they  pursued. 

This  fragmentary  review  of  the  period  when  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth  emerged  to  view  can  now  be  recapitulated. 
The  mighty  deeps  had  been  broken  up  by  the  French  Revolu- 
tion and  its  sequel  in  the  Napoleonic  wars.  Then  came  a 
swell  of  soul  at  home  and  abroad  which  bore  forward  on  its 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  429 

crest  a  series  of  poets,  prophets,  thinkers,  and  statesmen,  with 
every  kind  of  talent  and  genius  in  human  affairs.  Although 
they  assailed  or  defended  vested  interests  and  creeds,  the  one 
constructive  project  which  engaged  all  alike  was  the  rebuild- 
ing of  the  social  structure.  The  sons  of  the  new  liberalism 
urged  this  on  the  basis  of  religious  and  political  reform.  The 
defenders  of  rank  and  privilege  preserved  as  best  they  could 
the  remnants  of  their  station  in  life.  The  traditionalists, 
whether  Roman  or  Anglican,  resmned  their  pleas  for  the 
sanctions  of  custom  and  antiquity  which  had  been  interrupted 
by  the  revolutionary  epoch.  Serious  men  for  whom  religion 
meant  the  most  awful  and  most  personal  thing  on  earth 
were  dismayed :  theologians  were  either  retroactive  or 
cautiously  progressive,  philosophers  were  averse  to  current 
orthodoxy,  and  scientists,  absorbed  in  their  first  vision  of 
the  wonder  of  physical  phenomena,  were  advancing  theories 
which  had  to  rim  the  gauntlet  of  a  bitter  opposition.  The 
need  for  unified  processes  of  thought  and  action  was  apparent. 
But  none  seemed  to  have  that  gift  of  generalization  which 
could  bring  the  era  to  a  focus,  or  show  its  bearing  upon 
the  forces  of  a  growing  communism  to  be  realized  by  the 
spread  of  intelligent  and  identical  aims  among  all  classes. 
Yet  the  difficulties  and  perils  of  the  situation  have  been  exag- 
gerated. It  was  not  in  any  sense  a  widespread  crisis;  the 
stern  discipline  of  war  or  of  a  common  calamity  had  no  place 
in  its  history.  There  was  no  leveling  of  the  artificial  differ- 
ences which  separate  man  from  man.  The  depths  of  life 
were  still  left  unplumbed.  The  majority  of  the  people 
remained  indifferent  to  the  perpetual  strife  of  the  clericals 
and  anti-clericals.  The  religious  instincts  and  emotions, 
which  are  as  remote  from  dogma  as  they  are  from  politics, 
asserted  themselves  independently  of  the  clash  of  opinions 
between  the  clergy  and  their  opponents.  Neither  the  Oxford 
Movement  nor  any  other  stir  in  the  troubled  affairs  of  the 
time  had  power  to  reveal  on  a  large  scale  the  essentials  of 
human  being ;  to  obliterate  social  caste,  to  transform  surface 


430      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

existence  to  simple  sincerity  of  word  and  deed,  and,  as  in  a  day 
of  supreme  searching  trial,  to  banish  the  dross  of  base  desire 
and  ignoble  triviality  and  purify  the  national  character. 
Neither  the  High  nor  the  Low  Church  party  was  conspic- 
uous for  clarity  of  thought  or  warmth  of  sentiment;  both 
were  deficient  in  philosophical  essentials ;  both  were  deprived 
of  sufficient  intellectual  guidance.  And  if  their  constantly 
accumulating  obligations  to  the  advancing  mind  of  the 
times  found  them  without  the  means  of  payment,  from  the 
moral  and  religious  standpoints  their  condition  was  even 
worse.  Dean  Church  declared  that  Tractarianism  to  a  large 
measure  had  its  spring  in  the  consciences  and  character  of  its 
leaders  reacting  against  the  prevalent  slackness  in  the  religious 
life  of  their  fellow  churchmen,  many  of  whom  were  afflicted 
with  a  strange  blindness  to  the  austerity  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Yet  when  all  these  factors  have  been  weighed,  the 
origin  and  results  of  the  High  Church  Revival  remain  some- 
what of  a  mystery,  in  the  interpretation  of  which  hasty 
judgments  are  to  be  deprecated.  For  the  profound  changes 
which  have  been  wrought  by  modern  life  and  thought  were 
then  no  more  than  embryonic.  In  addition  to  the  political 
developments  named,  a  system  of  compulsory  education 
has  since  been  established  throughout  the  British  Empire. 
Ecclesiastical  claims  that  once  seemed  essential  to  the  in- 
terests of  religion  have  been  set  aside  and  an  unaccustomed 
breadth  imparted  to  the  symbols  and  standards  of  theological 
opinion.  The  scientific  temper  which  was  formerly  an  out- 
cast is  at  last  dominant  in  art  and  literature.  The  entire 
conception  of  society  and  of  the  functions  and  duties  of 
government  has  been  enormously  extended.  The  Tracta- 
rians  were  under  the  duress  of  the  sacerdotalism  already 
described.  In  behalf  of  a  divinely  authorized  Church  they 
were  indifferent  toward  immediate  or  prospective  better- 
ment, and  disparaged  what  was  near  at  hand  for  the  sake 
of  what  was  afar  off.  They  set  forth  much  that  was 
romantic  and,  to  the  British  mind,  obscure,  in  terms  that 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  431 

sounded  like  a  grotesque  perversion  of  facts  and  rhetoric. 
A  reaction  to  Catholicism  which  seemed  to  be  born  out  of 
due  time  was  thus  equipped  and  treated  with  a  homage 
having  in  it  the  note  of  an  older  world.  Nor  were  they  sub- 
ject to  that  discipline  which  accepted  what  was  prejudicial 
to  previous  convictions,  if  it  was  true,  or  rejected  what  seemed 
favorable,  if  it  was  unaccompanied  by  substantial  proof. 
Nevertheless,  they  made  headway  in  an  age  when  science 
began  to  vaunt  itself  as  competent  to  deal  with  philosophy 
and  religion.  Among  a  people  avowedly  Protestant,  the 
Tractarians  managed  to  baffle  their  assailants,  overcome  ap- 
parently insuperable  difficulties,  and,  armed  with  weapons 
despised  as  archaic,  to  continue  the  struggle  against  the 
rationalism  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

The  chief  agent  in  this  achievement  was  a  child  of  Cal- 
vinistic  Evangelicalism  and  a  son  of  Oxford,  devoted  to  the 
medievalism  which  prevailed  in  its  institutions  as  in  its 
architecture.  "Destined,  like  Wesley,  to  traverse  the  cen- 
tury; like  him  to  exercise  on  all  who  came  near  him  a 
miraculous  influence  of  attraction  or  repulsion ;  like  him  also 
to  be  rejected  of  his  University  and  his  Church,  and  to  set  a 
large  movement  going  in  many  directions,"  ^  Newmari,T 
though  not  the  actual  originator  of  Tractarianism,  was  its 
regal  personality,  its  leader  of  radiating  power.  He  gave 
it  life,  breath,  being ;  apart  from  him,  and  his  intrepid  genius, 
it  is  highly  problematical  whether  it  could  have  attained  a 
permanent  existence.  And  after  he  had  ceased  to  be  a 
member  of  the  Church  of  his  birth  his  unprecedented  pre- 
dominance was  long  felt  in  her  history.  His  Anglican  career 
was  another  proof  that  the  exceptional  man  is  the  solution  of 
problems  which  yield  to  nothing  else :  the  man  with  that 
touch  of  heart  and  brain  which  cannot  be  defined,  but  which 
all  instinctively  recognize  as  sufficient  for  the  occasion. 
Such  was  Newman ;  he  flashed  through  the  mass  of  medioc- 
rity that  vital  light  without  which  no  development  of  ordi-, 
nary  qualities  can  prosper. 

>  Dr.  William  Barry  :   "Cardinal  Newman"  ;   p.  5. 


CHAPTER    X 
NEWMAN'S  DEVELOPMENT  AND   PERSONALITY 


433 


The  stage  on  which  what  is  called  the  Oxford  Movement  ran 
through  its  course  had  a  special  character  of  its  own,  unlike  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  other  religious  efforts  had  done  their  work.  The 
scene  of  Jansenism  had  been  a  great  capital,  a  brilliant  society,  the 
precincts  of  a  court,  the  cells  of  a  convent,  the  studies  and  libraries  of 
the  doctors  of  the  Sorbonne,  the  council  chambers  of  the  Vatican. 

The  scene  of  this  new  Movement  was  as  like  as  it  could  be  in,  our 
modern  world  to  a  Greek  ttoXis  or  an  Italian  self-centered  city  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Oxford  stood  by  itself  in  its  meadows  by  the  rivers, 
having  its  relations  with  all  England,  but,  like  its  sister  at  Cambridge, 
living  a  life  of  its  own,  unlike  that  of  any  other  spot  in  England,  with 
its  privileged  powers  and  exemptions  from  the  general  law,  with  its 
special  mode  of  government  and  police,  its  usages  and  tastes  and  tradi- 
tions, and  even  costumes  which  the  rest  of  England  looked  at  from 
outside,  much  interested  but  much  puzzled,  or  knew  only  by  transient 
visits.  And  Oxford  was  as  proud  and  jealous  of  its  own  ways  as  Athens 
or  Florence,  and  like  them  it  had  its  quaint  fashions  of  polity ;  its  demo- 
cratic Convocation  and  its  oligarchy ;  its  social  ranks ;  its  discipline, 
severe  in  theory,  and  usually  lax  in  fact;  its  self-governed  bodies  and 
corporations  within  itself;  its  faculties  and  colleges,  like  the  guilds 
and  "arts"  of  Florence;  its  internal  rivalries  and  discords ;  its  "sets" 
and  factions.  Like  these,  too,  it  professed  a  special  recognition  of 
the  supremacy  of  religion ;  it  claimed  to  be  a  home  of  worship  and 
religious  training,  —  Dominus  illuminatio  mea,  —  a  claim  too  often 
falsified  in  the  habits  and  tempers  of  life. 

Dean  Church  :    The  Oxford  Movement;   pp.  159-160. 


434 


CHAPTER    X 

Newman's  development  and  personality 

Newman's  various  aspects  —  Birth  and  parentage  —  Charles  and 
Francis  Newman  —  A  sister's  portrayal  —  Mystical  idealism  —  School- 
days —  His  conversion  —  Thomas  Scott  —  William  Law  —  John  New- 
ton —  Impressionable  yet  independent  —  Personal  influence  —  The 
"Apologia"  —  First  Oxford  phase  —  Success  and  failure  —  Dr. 
Whately  —  Ordained  —  Appearance  —  Opposite  qualities  —  Deepen- 
ing sohtude  —  Anglican  Calvinism  and  High  Church  doctrine  — 
Dreamer  and  Dogmatist  —  Blanco  White  —  Hurrell  Froude  —  Keble 
—  Newman's  pessimism  —  Illness  and  bereavement  —  Break  with 
Liberalism  —  Revivalism  —  Romanticism  —  Appeal  to  Antiquity  — 
Angelology  —  Dr.  Hawkins  —  Vicar  of  St.  Mary's  —  Disagreement  with 
Hawkins  —  The  Arians  —  Newman  as  a  preacher  —  His  continental 
tour  —  Visit  to  Naples,  Rome  and  Sicily  —  Influences  of  the  Journey  — 
Interviews  with  Dr.  Wiseman  —  Newman's  illness  —  His  poems. 


Newman  was  an  exemplification  of  his  own  contention  that^ 
the  same  object  may  be  viewed  by  various  observers  under 
such  different  aspects  as  to  make  their  accounts  of  it  appear 
more  or  less  contradictory.  To  some  he  was  the  religious 
philosopher,  the  Pascal  of  his  period ;  to  others  he  was  the 
great  doctor,  whose  work  on  the  Arians  would  be  read  and 
studied  by  future  generations  as  a  model  of  its  kind.  To  a 
certain  type  of  admirers  he  was  the  superb  preacher,  the 
Chrysostom  of  St.  Mary's,  Oxford,  and  of  the  Oratories  of 
Brompton  and  of  Edgbaston ;  to  a  less  favorable  group  he 
was  nothing  more  than  a  cunning  master  of  English  prose, 
a  writer  of  incomparable  artistry  and  seductive  charm,  who 
made  siren  words  do  duty  for  rational  and  coherent  think-  , 
ing.  Lord  Morley,  from  whom  we  quote,  observes  that 
style   has  worked    many  a  miracle  before   now,  but  none 

435 


436      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

more  wonderful  than  Newman's.^  Again,  some  asserted 
that  his  knowledge  of  the  first  centuries  of  Church  history 
entitled  him  to  rank  among  the  foremost  ecclesiastical  his- 
torians, while  for  apologists  and  disputants  his  merit 
lay  in  his  controversial  skill.  Both  Modernists  and  Tradi- 
tionalists have  claimed  him  as  their  own.  Catholic  Angli- 
cans revere  his  proud  yet  melancholy  memory  because  he 
was  their  great  pleader  at  a  critical  moment  and  in  an  anoma- 
lous position.  Perhaps  his  most  notable  achievement  was 
this :  that  he  actually  raised  the  Roman  Communion  to 
which  he  seceded  out  of  the  contemptuous  misunderstand- 
ing and  deep  dislike  of  his  countrymen  to  a  place  in  their 
recognition,  if  not  esteem,  which  before  his  appearance 
would  have  seemed  unattainable.  His  presence  in  the  midst 
of  her  was  an  incalculable  help  to  the  Roman  hierarchy, 
which  did  not,  however,  fully  appreciate  his  value.  The 
fact  that  the  most  brilliant  and  gifted  son  of  the  Church  of 
England  was  content  to  be  the  eremite  of  Edgbaston,  be- 
cause of  his  exceeding  love  for  antiquity  and  for  a  system 
they  had  despised  and  rejected,  never  ceased  to  puzzle  and 
chasten  eager  Protestants.  For  them  and  many  besides, 
jjohn  Henry  Newman  was,  and  still  is,  the  grand  enigma. 

He  was  born  in  Old  Broad  Street,  London,  on  the  21st  of 
February,  1801,  the  eldest  of  six  children,  three  sons  and 
three  daughters.  His  father,  John  Newman,  a  banker  in  that 
city,  is  said  to  have  traced  his  descent  from  the  Newmans 
who  were  small  landed  proprietors  of  Cambridgeshire. 
They  claimed  Dutch  extraction,  and  in  an  earlier  generation 
spelt  their  name  "Newmann,"  a  form  which  has  given  rise 
to  the  conjecture  that  they  were  of  Hebrew  origin,  but  there 
is  no  conclusive  evidence  that  such  was  the  case.  Although 
the  "Apologia"  is  silent  about  the  elder  Newman,  his  son's 
"Letters  and  Correspondence"  contain  numerous  and  affec- 
tionate references  to  him.  He  was  a  Freemason  of  high 
standing ;    a  man  of  the  world,   prosaic,  honest,   choleric, 

1  "Miscellanies"  ;    (Fourth  Series),  p.  161. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  437 

enterprising,  full  of  good  sense;  animated  by  a  love  of 
justice  and  a  hatred  of  oppression  and  fraud.  Newman 
eulogized  his  forbearance  and  generosity  as  a  father,  and 
while  the  son's  genius  was  all  his  own,  he  inherited  from  him 
a  taste  for  classical  music  and  an  excellent  capacity  for 
business. 

Like  another  famous  contemporary,  James  Martineau, 
Newman  also  sprang  from  Huguenot  stock.  His  mother, 
Jemima  Fourdinier,  belonged  to  the  French  Protestant 
family  of  that  name  long  and  honorably  established  in  Lon- 
don as  merchants.  For  her  he  cherished  a  filial  love, 
which  was  not,  however,  without  occasional  moods  of 
self-assertion  and  flashes  of  an  exacting  disposition.  She 
had  some  part  in  his  earlier  religious  development,  but  was 
temperamentally  unable  to  follow  his  leadership  in  later 
days,  and  he  spoke  with  regret  of  the  differences  on  reli- 
gious matters  which  separated  them,  and  that  he  missed  the 
sympathy  and  praise  she  could  not  conscientiously  bestow.^ 

His  introduction  to  literature  began  while  listening  to  her 
reading  of  "The  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,"  and  when 
"Waverley"  and  "Guy  Mannering"  appeared,  he  spent 
the  early  hours  of  summer  mornings  in  bed  eagerly  devour- 
ing them.  Scott  was  always  one  of  his  favorite  authors, 
but  the  Holy  Scriptures  were  his  constant  companion :  from 
the  dawn  of  his  understanding  he  was  trained  in  their  pre- 
cepts, and  it  would  not  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  he 
knew  the  Bible  by  heart.  In  old  age  he  described  in  beauti- 
ful and  pathetic  language  the  hold  it  had  upon  him  and  how 
impossible  it  was  to  elude  or  even  lessen  the  sweet  influences 
of  this,  his  first  and  last  treasured  possession. 

A  fleeting  glimpse  is  caught  of  him  as  a  child  playing  in 
Bloomsbury  Square  with  young  Benjamin  Disraeli,  but 
his  best  remembered  home  was  at  Ham,  then  a  rural 
retreat,  near  Richmond-on-Thames.  Its  charms  always 
lingered  in  his  recollections,  and  in  his  eightieth  year  he 

^  "Letters  and  Correspondence"  ;   Vol.  II,  pp.  176-177. 


438      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

wrote :  "  I  dreamed  about  it  when  a  schoolboy  as  if  it  were 
paradise.  It  would  be  here  where  the  angel  faces  appeared 
'loved  long  since  but  lost  awhile.'"  His  two  brothers 
shared  the  intellectual  endowments  of  the  family,  but  Charles 
Robert,  who  stood  next  to  him  in  age,  was  eccentric  to  the 
verge  of  insanity,  and  the  purposes  of  his  life  were  defeated 
by  his  personal  habits.  Francis  William,  the  youngest  of 
the  three,  had  a  more  successful  undergraduate  career  at 
Oxford  than  John,  obtaining  a  double  first  class  in  1826  and 
a  fellowship  at  Balliol  in  the  same  year.  After  a  diversified 
and  eventful  life  as  a  missionary  in  Persia  and  professor  in 
several  schools,  he  was  appointed  to  the  chair  of  Latin  in 
University  College,  London,  where  he  remained  from  1846 
to  1869,  an  extended  tenure  during  which  his  versatility  in 
writing  on  many  and  different  themes  attracted  wide  atten- 
tion. Some  of  these  were  of  such  an  erudite  or  fantastic 
nature  as  to  defy  popular  apprehension.  He  was  a  much 
misunderstood  and  disappointed  man,  whose  life  and  work 
were  in  striking  contrast  to  those  of  his  eldest  brother.  The 
one  drifted  toward  the  shelter  of  an  infallible  dogma,  the 
other  toward  the  tempestuous  seas  of  doubt.  Carlyle 
spoke  kindly  of  Francis  as  "an  ardently  inquiring  soul,  of 
fine  university  and  other  attainments,  of  sharp-cutting  rest- 
lessly advancing  intellect,  and  the  mildest  pious  enthusiasm, 
whose  worth,  since  better  known  to  all  the  world,  Sterling 
highly  estimated."  ^  Of  the  three  sisters  the  eldest,  Harriet 
Elizabeth,  married  Thomas  Mozley,  the  author  of  the 
"Reminiscences,"  a  work  necessary  to  students  of  Newman; 
the  second,  Jemima  Charlotte,  married  John  Mozley  of 
Derby ;  and  the  third  and  favorite  sister,  Mary  Sophia,  died 
unmarried  in  1828. 

Harriet's  portrayal  of  John  Henry  as  a  young  man,  while 
showing  a  sister's  partiality,  is  significant  and  candid.  He 
was  inclined  to  be  philosophical,  observant,  considerate 
of    others,    dainty    in   his  tastes,  and  extremely  shy;    his 

•  "Life  of  John  Sterling"  ;  p.  184. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  439 

views  were  moderate,  his  judgments  measured,  his  regard  for 
truth  absolute.  Social  intercourse  of  any  kind  bored  him, 
and  his  dislike  of  praise  or  blame  induced  him  to  practice  an 
unusual  reserve  which  hid  even  from  his  parents  the  fact, 
not  without  its  pathos,  that  the  son  lived  in  another  world 
than  theirs.  God  intended  him,  as  he  supposed,  to  be  lonely, 
and  his  mind  was  so  framed  that  he  was  in  a  large  measure 
beyond  the  reach  of  those  around  him.  He  found  consola- 
tion in  music,  and  became  so  proficient  on  the  violin  that 
Thomas  Mozley  assures  us  he  would  have  equaled  Paganini 
had  he  not  become  a  doctor  of  the  Church. 

His  reveries  bemused  him,  a  sense  of  things  ethereal, 
subtle,  remote,  haunted  him ;  he  loved  to  surrender  himself 
to  vague  and  formless  imaginings:  unknown  influences, 
magical  powers  and  adumbrations  entranced  his  youthful 
spirit.  He  lay  passive  and  luxuriant  in  their  embrace  while 
they  wafted  him  to  an  upper  realm,  wherein,  as  he  says  —  "I 
thought  life  might  be  a  dream,  or  I  an  angel,  and  all  the  world 
a  deception,  my  fellow  angels  by  a  playful  device  concealing 
themselves  from  me,  and  deceiving  me  with  the  semblance 
of  a  material  world."  ^  This  persuasion  of  the  illusory 
nature  of  sensible  phenomena  came  early  in  his  life  and  per- 
sisted to  its  close.  He  moved  freely  in  the  home  and  the 
social  circle,  contributing  to  their  pleasure  by  his  accom- 
plishments, but  always  separated  from  them  by  an  imponder- 
able barrier.  For  the  moment  in  these  things,  he  was  never 
of  them.  Like  an  occasional  visitant  from  another  sphere, 
who  might  choose  at  intervals  to  dwell  among  appearances  as 
unsubstantial  as  his  own  experience  was  vividly  real,  yet 
without  being  deceived  by  them  or  capitulating  to  their 
charms,  so  Newman  came  and  went.  Life  everywhere  hid 
beneath  its  delusions  something  better  to  be  gained.  This 
nearness  to  the  invisible  aroused  his  superstitious  fears,  and 
he  states  that  for  some  time  previous  to  his  conversion  he  used 
constantly  to  cross  himself  on  going  into  the  dark.^ 

1  "Apologia"  ;   p.  2.  *  Ihid.,  p.  2. 


440      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

At  the  age  of  seven  he  was  placed  in  a  private  academy 
at  EaUng  conducted  on  Eton  lines  by  Dr.  George  Nicholas. 
Thomas  Huxley,  whose  father  was  a  tutor  there,  was  also 
a  later  pupil,  and  the  high  reputation  of  the  school  was 
increased  by  the  fact  that  it  helped  to  shape  the  lives  of 
two  such  entirely  different  men  as  Huxley  and  Newman. 
Although  he  showed  no  interest  in  the  favorite  pursuits  of  his 
companions,  his  character  and  gifts  soon  elicited  their  esteem 
and  confidence.  He  was  of  a  studious  turn  and  quick  appre- 
hension, and  Dr.  Nicholas,  to  whom  he  became  greatly  at- 
tached, was  accustomed  to  say  that  no  boy  had  run  from  the 

;  bottom  to  the  top  of  the  school  as  rapidly  as  John  Newman. 
Still  he  lost  something  by  not  being  a  public  school  man, 
for,  while  he  acquired  an  accurate  knowledge  of  mathemat- 
ics, he  was  deficient  in  Latin.  He  used  to  regard  with  ad- 
miration the  facile  and  elegant  construing  which  a  pupil  of 
very  ordinary  talents  would  bring  with  him  from  the  sixth 
form  of  Rugby  or  Winchester ;  yet  he  assisted  in  rendering 
the  plays  of  Terence  which  were  frequently  given  at  the 
school,  and  acted  the  parts  of  Davus  in  the  "  Andria"  and  of 
Pythias  in  the  "Eunuchus."  He  wrote  both  prose  and  verse 
with  grace  and  flexibility ;  at  first  he  imitated  Addison ; 
later  Johnson's  sonorous  roll  could  be  detected  in  his  efforts ; 
then  the  stately  cadences  of  Gibbon  manifestly  affected  him  ; 
finally  he  found  himself,  and  began  to  show  traces  of  that 
artistic  construction  wherein  by  practice  his  style  became  so 
nearly  perfect,  so  complete,  as  to  suflBce  for  the  permanence 
of  his  works. 

His  preternatural  religiousness  was  greatly  stimulated 
after  he  matriculated  at  Oxford  by  his  conversion,  of  which 
he  says  in  the  "Apologia,"  "I  am  still  more  certain  than  that 
I  have  hands  or  feet."  After  seventy  years  had  elapsed  it 
was  difficult  for  him  to  realize  his  continuous  identity  before 

land  after  August  18,  1816.^  The  sudden  uprush  and  con- 
summation of  continuous  processes  which  drew  so  clear  a  line 

*  "Letters  and  Correspondence"  ;   p.  19. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  441 

between  the  two  periods  is  discussed  at  length  in  the  "  Apolo- 
gia": "I  fell  under  the  influences  of  a  definite  Creed,  and 
received  into  my  intellect  impressions  of  dogma,  which, 
through  God's  mercy,  have  never  been  effaced  or  obscured. 
Above  and  beyond  the  conversations  and  sermons  of  the 
excellent  man,  long  dead,  the  Reverend  Walter  Mayers,  of 
Pembroke  College,  Oxford,  who  was  the  human  means  of 
this  beginning  of  divine  faith  in  me,  was  the  effect  of  the  books 
which  he  put  into  my  hands,  all  of  the  school  of  Calvin. 
One  of  the  first  books  I  read  was  a  work  of  Romaine's; 
I  neither  recollect  the  title  nor  the  contents,  except  one  doc- 
trine, which  of  course  I  do  not  include  among  those  which  I 
believe  to  have  come  from  a  divine  source,  viz.,  the  doctrine  of 
final  perseverance.  I  received  it  at  once,  and  believed  that 
the  inward  conversion  of  which  I  was  conscious  would  last 
into  the  next  life,  and  that  I  was  elected  to  eternal  glory. 
I  have  no  consciousness  that  this  belief  had  any  tendency 
whatever  to  lead  me  to  be  careless  about  pleasing  God. 
I  retained  it  till  the  age  of  twenty-one,  when  it  gradually 
faded  away ;  but  I  believe  that  it  had  some  influence  on  my 
opinions,  in  the  direction  of  those  childish  imaginations  which 
I  have  already  mentioned,  viz.,  in  isolating  me  from  the  ob- 
jects which  surrounded  me,  in  confirming  me  in  my  mistrust 
of  the  reality  of  material  phenomena,  and  making  me  rest  in 
the  thought  of  two  and  two  only  absolute  and  luminously 
self-evident  beings,  myself  and  my  Creator."  ^  This  account 
of  his  inmost  experiences  is  important  for  several  reasons. 
It  unveils  the  secret  motives  and  aspirations  which  he  felt 
and  favored  at  this  juncture ;  it  shows  that  from  adolescence 
onward  his  intellectual  life  was  as  full  of  contrasts  as  his 
emotional,  and  that  his  excessive  sensibility  was  the  explana- 
tion at  once  of  his  frailty  and  his  strength.  Even  in  the 
moment  of  their  real  awakening,  his  religious  instincts  found 
other  than  normal  outlets.  In  his  comparison  of  the  impres- 
sive change  which  supervened  in  him  with  other  remarkable 

^  "  Apologia  "  ;  p.  4. 


442      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

personal  experiences  which  demonstrated  Christianity's 
regenerating  effectiveness,  he  was  careful  to  state  that 
his  own  had  none  of  their  special  characteristics.  It 
was  without  violent  feeling :  he  did  not  pass  through  the 
prescribed  stages  of  conviction  of  sin,  terror,  despair, 
and  acceptance  of  a  free  and  full  salvation  followed  by 
joy  and  peace.  His  emotions  were  peculiar  to  himself. 
While  he  considered  that  he  was  predestined  to  salvation, 
his  mind  did  not  dwell  upon  the  general  fate  of  man- 
kind, but  only  upon  the  mercy  displayed  toward  him- 
self. Indeed,  normal  Evangelicals  doubted  whether  he 
had  been  regenerated  at  all,  and  when  in  1821  he  tried  to 
write  a  description  of  the  inwardness  of  this  reality  he  added 
in  a  note,  "  I  speak  of  conversion  with  great  diffidence,  being 
obliged  to  adopt  the  language  of  books.  My  own  feelings, 
as  far  as  I  can  remember,  were  so  different  from  any  account 
I  have  ever  read,  that  I  dare  not  go  by  what  may  be  an 
individual  case."  ^ 

To  the  unsophisticated  believer,  triumphant  in  a  newborn 
realization  of  his  personal  Saviour,  a  logically  coherent 
dogmatic  system  such  as  Newman  accepted  is,  for  the  time 
being,  a  secondary  consideration.  In  the  words  of  Thomas  a 
Kempis,  the  soul  which  has  heard  the  Eternal  Voice  is  de- 
livered from  its  opinions ;  the  greatness  which  is  from  above 
does  not  spend  its  first  strength  on  such  details.  The  avowed 
absence  in  him  of  conviction  of  sin  and  of  the  consequent 
enraptured  sense  of  deliverance  from  sin  deepens  the  mys- 
tery of  the  process.  It  was  an  influx  of  divine  life,  but 
that  life  appears  to  have  been  conveyed  through  channels 
unknown  to  the  general  consciousness  of  Christians  re- 
specting their  conversion.  If  in  this  crucial  hour  such 
was  Newman's  case,  it  may  help  to  explain  his  constant 
endeavors  to  defend  his  faith.  Hort  remarked  of  him,  "A 
more  inspiring  teacher  it  would  be  difficult  to  find,  but  the 

*  Wilfred  Ward :  "The  Life  of  John  Henry  Cardinal  Newman"  ;  Vol.  I, 
p.  30, 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  443 

power  of  building  up  was  not  one  of  his  gifts."  ^  "  Certainly, 
books  with  a  system  abound  in  his  work,  but  he  does  not  need 
much  pressing  to  make  him  admit  the  essential  brittleness 
and  contingency  of  these  provisional  structures."  ^  His 
survey  of  divine  things,  begun  with  much  apparent  confi- 
dence, is  often  shadowed  by  reflections  that  what  has  been 
said  is  "but  a  dream,  the  wanton  exercise,  rather  than 
the  practical  conclusions  of  the  intellect."  "Such,"  he 
continues,  "is  the  feeling  of  minds  unversed  in  the  disap- 
pointments of  the  world,  incredulous  how  much  it  has 
of  promise,  how  little  of  substance ;  what  intricacy  and 
confusion  beset  the  most  certain  truths ;  how  much  must  be 
taken  on  trust  in  order  to  be  possessed ;  how  little  can  be 
realized  except  by  an  effort  of  the  will ;  how  great  a  part  of 
enjoyment  lies  in  resignation."  ^  This  reasoning  is  accept- 
able to  those  upward  striving  men  of  whom  Matthew  Arnold 
speaks,  who  w^alk  by  sight  and  not  by  faith,  yet  have  no  open 
vision.  But  it  plays  a  minor  part  in  that  warm  certitude 
which  is  the  product  of  living  faith  in  the  revelation  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

In  summary,  as  a  child  Newman  felt  with  unusual  intensity 
the  sense  of  the  presence  of  God.  He  has  already  told  us 
in  solemn  and  memorable  phrases  of  the  moment  when 
the  still  pool  within  his  heart  became  a  living  fountain, 
divinely  thrilled  by  the  spiritual  quickening  which  blended 
his  innermost  being  with  the  love,  the  omnipotence,  and  the 
nearness  of  the  Almighty.  Ever  afterwards  this  event  was 
a  ruling  factor  in  his  religious  attainments,  but  the  essence 
of  the  Gospel  of  Redemption  did  not  seem  to  be  luminous  to 
his  apprehension. 

Among  other  writers  who  contributed  to  his  spiritual 
welfare  was  Thomas  Scott,  the  commentator,  of  Aston  San- 
ford,  "to  whom"  he  averred,  "humanly  speaking  I  almost 
owe  my  soul."     Scott,  who  had  been  won  from  Socinianism 

»  "Life  and  Letters"  ;   Vol.  II,  p.  424. 

*    Henri  Bremond  :   "The  Mystery  of  Newman"  ;   p.  330. 

'  "Prophetical  Office"  ;   Lecture  XIV,  pp.  392-393. 


444      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

by  John  Newton,  the  friend  of  Cowper,  denied  and  abjured 
the  "detestable  doctrine"  of  predestination,  and  planted 
deep  in  Newman's  mind  "  that  fundamental  truth  of  religion, 
a  zealous  faith  in  the  Holy  Trinity."  Law's  "Serious  Call" 
convinced  him  of  the  relentless  warfare  between  the  powers  of 
light  and  those  of  darkness,  and  he  took  for  granted  the  hard- 
and-fast  dualism  which  was  afterwards  injurious  to  his 
interpretation  of  life.^  The  doctrine  of  eternal  rewards  and 
punishments  he  accepted  with  full  inward  assent,  as  delivered 
by  our  Lord  Himself,  though  he  tried  in  various  ways  to 
soften  the  truth  of  endless  retribution  so  that  it  would  be 
less  terrible  to  his  apprehension.  He  made  his  first  acquaint- 
ance with  the  Fathers  through  the  long  extracts  from  St. 
Augustine  and  St.  Ambrose  given  in  Joseph  Milner's  Church 
History.  Simultaneously  w^th  these,  of  which  he  was  nothing 
short  of  enamoured,  he  read  Newton's  ^  "  Dissertations  on  the 
Prophecies,"  and  became  firmly  convinced  that  the  Pope  was 
the  Antichrist  predicted  by  the  prophet  Daniel,  and  also  by 
St.  Paul  and  St.  John.  He  complains  of  his  imagination 
being  "  stained  by  the  effects  of  this  doctrine  up  to  the  year 
1843 ;  it  had  been  obliterated  from  my  reason  and  judgment 
at  an  earlier  date ;  but  the  thought  remained  upon  me  as  a 
sort  of  false  conscience."  ^ 

1  We  have  already  noted  the  extent  of  Law's  influence  over  Gibbon,  Wes- 
ley, and  other  dissimilar  men ;  it  is  interesting  to  observe  that  Dr.  Johnson 
also  testified  to  the  power  of  that  writer.  "I  became,"  he  says,  referring  to 
his  early  youth,  "a  sort  of  lax  talker  against  religion,  .  .  .  and  this  lasted 
till  I  went  to  Oxford,  where  it  would  not  be  sufifered.  When  at  Oxford,  I 
took  up  Law's  'Serious  Call  to  a  Holy  Life,'  expecting  to  find  it  a  dull  book, 
as  such  books  generally  are,  and  perhaps  to  laugh  at  it.  But  I  found  Law 
quite  an  overmatch  for  me ;  and  this  was  the  first  occasion  of  my  thinking 
in  earnest  of  religion,  after  I  became  capable  of  rational  enquiry  ..." 
"From  this  time  forward,"  adds  Boswell,  "religion  was  the  predominant 
object  of  his  thought.  .  .  .  He  much  commended  Law's  'Serious  Call,' 
which  he  said  was  the  finest  piece  of  hortatory  theology  in  any  language." 
(Boswell's  "Life  of  Dr.  Johnson";  Everyman's  Library,  Vol.  I,  pp.  32-33, 
and  390.)  Law  was  also  one  of  the  favorite  authors  of  Richard  Hurrell 
Froude. 

*  Thomas  Newton,  1704-1782,  Bishop  of  Bristol  and  Dean  of  St.  Paul's, 
London.  In  1754  he  lost  his  father  and  his  wife,  and  distracted  his  grief  by 
composing  these  Dissertations.  ' 

'  "Apologia"  ;  p.  7. 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  445 

From  the  moment  that  Newman  entered  Oxford  his  hfe 
continued  to  be  in  the  main  the  record  of  a  series  of 
varied  influences  poured  into  his  highly  receptive  nature. 
His  vigorous  and  expanding  intellect  displayed  an  unusual 
aptitude  for  imbibing  the  thoughts  and  ideas  of  others. 
This  unique  impressionability  had  an  unfortunate  bearing 
on  his  course  both  as  an  undergraduate  and  a  fellow  of  the 
University.  It  was  the  cause  of  that  perpetual  modification 
or  relinquishment  of  principles  which  has  fastened  upon  a 
man  of  commendable  motives  the  reputation  for  fickleness 
and  vacillation.  The  successive  formations  of  his  beliefs 
resembled  the  accumulating  deposits  of  an  alluvial  soil. 
Yet  as  the  strata  underneath  the  soil  remain  stable,  so 
despite  his  hospitality  toward  different  views  Newman 
retained  a  steady  and  fixed  individuality.  "Perhaps," 
says  Mrs.  Mozley,  "no  man,  passing  through  a  course  of 
change,  ever  remained  more  substantially  the  same  through 
the  lapse  of  years  and  revolution  of  circumstances  and 
opinions."  ^  He  selected  from  the  instructions  and  advices 
he  received  those  elements  which  seemed  necessary,  and,  this 
done,  he  did  not  hesitate,  in  many  instances,  to  discard  the 
mentor.  "John,"  observed  his  sister,  "can  be  the  most 
amiable,  the  most  generous  of  men ;  he  can  make  people 
passionately  devoted  to  him.  But  to  become  his  friend  the 
condition  sine  qua  non  is  to  see  everything  with  his  eyes  and 
to  accept  him  as  guide."  ^ 

In  a  University  sermon  preached  on  January  22,  1832,  he 
dealt  with  personal  influence  as  the  means  of  disseminating 
truth.  Commenting  on  the  text  "Out  of  weakness  were 
made  strong,"  he  asked,  how  came  it  that,  notwithstanding 
persecution,  those  who  first  proclaimed  the  Christian  dis- 
pensation gained  that  lodgment  in  the  world  which  has  con- 
tinued to  the  present  day,  enabling  them  to  perpetuate  princi- 
ples distasteful  to  the  majority  even  of  those  who  professed  to 

1  "Letters  and  Correspondence  of  John  Henry  Newman"  ;  Vol.  I,  p.  1. 
*  Francis  Newman:'  "The  Early  Life  of  Charles  Newman"  ;  p.  72. 


446   THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

receive  them?  The  answer  was  that  the  evangel  overcame 
the  vast  obstacles  confronting  it,  not  because  it  was  upheld 
by  a  system,  or  by  books,  or  by  argument,  or  by  any  tem- 
poral power,  but  by  a  few  highly  endowed  spirits  wL  '  "-» 
in  the  reflected  light  of  Christ's  perfect  life,  and  com. 
cated  their  radiance  to  lesser  luminaries.  They  were  enough 
to  carry  on  God's  noiseless  work,  and  their  successors  in 
holy  character  and  service  rescued  the  generations  that 
followed.^ 

Newman  was  a  first-class  example  of  transmitted  influ- 
ence ;  both  receiving  it  himself  and  imparting  it  to  others, 
sometimes  inexplicably,  almost  always  with  unusual  facility 
and  leavening  power.  Although  this  readiness  hindered 
him  from  dealing  adequately  with  many  scattered  facts  and 
discriminations  lying  beyond  the  range  even  of  his  percipient 
spirit,  it  contributed  to  the  fecundity  of  a  heart  rarely 
equaled  for  its  skill  in  contemplating  those  outflowing 
tides  from  the  Supreme  Being,  which  men  call  life  when  they 
rise  in  us,  and  death  when  they  ebb  again  to  Him. 

The  "Apologia"  is  an  acknowledged  masterpiece  of  literary 
portraiture.  Certain  passages  in  it  are  of  the  highest  quality ; 
the  characterizations  are  as  fine  and  close  as  need  be ;  bold 
and  pitilessly  outright.  Its  self-revelation  and  self-criticism 
show  much  candor  and  strength,  mingled  with  a  delicate 
evasiveness  or  an  eloquent  silence  about  some  persons  and 
events  which  betrays  the  author's  feelings  toward  them.  A 
wholly  detached  and  disinterested  observation  of  his  own 
career  was  hardly  to  be  expected,  indeed,  was  not  within  his 
power,  yet  the  volume  is  of  primary  importance  for  those 
who  would  understand  how  this  raw  bashful  youth,  who  at 
first  seemed  likely  to  dwarf  his  mental  stature  through 
diffidence  and  modesty,  was  rescued  from  his  extreme  reti- 
cence and  an  overweening  anxiety  to  guard  against  solecisms. 
He  began  his  first  phase  at  Oxford  as  an  ardent  Calvinistic 
Evangelical,  with   a   reproachful  and  pensive  view  of   life 

1  Oxford  University  Sermons ;    pp.  75-97. 


:  JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  447 

which  drew  him  away  from  transitory  things  toward  an  exclu- 
sive concern  for  the  spiritual  side  of  existence.  The  Univer- 
sity of  which  he  afterwards  became  an  avatar  was  steeped  in 
the?  i;:»ditions  of  immemorial  generations.  Its  guarded  and 
venoirable  precincts  represented  dignity,  wealth,  and  undis- 
puted place.  Its  history  embraced  the  hot  issues  of  his 
own  and  opposite  creeds.  The  romance  of  its  yesterdays 
had  not  infrequently  become  the  reality  of  its  to-morrows. 
Schoolmen  and  Medievalists,  Roman  Catholics  and  Protes- 
tants, Humanists  and  High  Churchmen,  Anglicans  and 
Puritans,  in  turn  had  contributed  to  the  intellectual  and 
moral  atmosphere  which  was  now  Newman's  vital  breath. 
Although  his  scholarly  attainments  were  nothing  remark- 
able, —  indeed  he  was  never  noted  for  extensive  or  profound 
learning,  —  yet  his  first  tutor  at  Trinity,  the  Reverend 
Thomas  Short,  formed  a  high  opinion  of  his  abilities,  and 
encouraged  him  to  compete  for  the  only  academic  distinction 
he  won  as  an  undergraduate,  a  scholarship  of  sixty  pounds, 
tenable  for  nine  years.  This  proved  a  timely  assistance,  for 
in  the  following  year,  1819,  the  bank  in  which  his  father  was 
a  partner  suspended  payment,  and  although  all  obligations 
were  met,  their  discharge  crippled  the  resources  of  the  family. 
Nothing  remained  but  his  mother's  jointure.  In  these  de- 
clining fortunes  Newman  read  the  call  to  a  higher  and  more 
congenial  profession  than  that  of  the  law,  for  which  he  had 
actually  been  preparing,  having  kept  a  few  terms  at  Lincoln's 
Inn.^  The  loss  of  opportunity  in  other  quarters  naturally 
increased  his  anxiety  to  do  well  in  the  final  University  ex- 
amination ;  the  result  was  further  disaster.  It  was  scarcely 
surprising  that,  although  he  had  passed  with  credit  his  first 
examination,  a  youth  not  yet  twenty  should  have  fallen 
short  in  his  efforts  to  win  the  highest  honors.  He  was  below 
the  average  age  of  candidates  for  the  B.A.  degree;  he  had 
read  too  discursively  and  was  unable,  in  the  time  that  re- 
mained, to  remedy  the  deficiency.     His  energies  were  never 

"Thomas  Mozley :   "Reminiscences";   Vol.  I,  p.  16. 


448     THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

more  diligently  employed,  but  they  were  misdirected.  He 
worked  to  the  point  of  exhaustion,  and,  being  called  up 
earlier  than  he  expected,  was  compelled,  after  making  sure 
of  his  degree,  to  retire  altogether.  "  My  nerves,"  he  wrote  to 
his  father,  "quite  forsook  me,  and  I  failed."  When  the 
lists  were  published  his  name  did  not  appear  on  the  mathe- 
matical side  of  the  paper,  and  in  classics  it  was  found  in  the 
lower  division  of  the  second  class  which  went  by  the  contemp- 
tuous term  of  "under  the  line."  Anxious  to  remain  at 
Oxford,  he  received  private  pupils  and  read  for  a  fellowship 
at  Oriel,  then  the  center  of  the  intellectualism  of  the  Univer- 
sity. The  coveted  election  was  won  exactly  a  year  after  his 
graduation,  on  the  12th  of  April,  1822,  a  day  which  he  ever 
felt  the  turning  point  of  his  life  and  of  all  days  most  memo- 
rable. "  It  raised  him,"  he  says,  writing  in  the  third  person, 
"from  obscurity  and  need,  to  competency  and  reputation. 
He  never  wished  anything  better  or  higher  than  'to  live  and 
die  a  Fellow  of  Oriel'  and  he  was  constant  all  through  his 
life  in  his  thankful  remembrance  of  this  great  mercy  of 
Divine  providence."  ^  It  was  then  that  he  met  John  Keble 
for  the  first  time.  "How  is  that  hour  fixed  in  my  memory 
after  the  changes  of  forty-two  years,  forty-two  years  this 
very  day  on  which  I  write !  I  have  lately  had  a  letter  in  my 
hands,  which  I  sent  at  the  time  to  my  great  friend,  John 
William  Bowden.  ...  'I  had  to  hasten  to  the  Tower,'  I 
say  to  him,  '  to  receive  the  congratulations  of  all  the  Fellows. 
I  bore  it  till  Keble  took  my  hand,  and  then  felt  so  abashed 
and  unworthy  of  the  honor  done  me,  that  I  seemed  desirous 
of  quite  sinking  into  the  ground.'  His  had  been  the  first 
name  which  I  had  heard  spoken  of,  with  reverence  rather 
than  admiration,  when  I  came  up  to  Oxford.  When  one 
day  I  was  walking  in  High  Street  with  my  dear  earliest  friend 
just  mentioned,  with  what  eagerness  did  he  cry  out '  There's 
Keble !'  and  with  what  awe  did  I  look  at  him."  ^ 

*  "Letters  and  Correspondence"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  64. 

*  "Apologia"  ;   p.  17. 

l 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  449 

The  one,  however,  to  whom  Newman  owed  most  at  this 
juncture  was  Dr.  Whately,  who  saw  with  his  accustomed  keen- 
ness the  promise  of  great  things  in  the  newly  elected  fellow. 
"  He  was  a  man  of  generous  and  warm  heart  .  .  .  particularly 
loyal  to  his  friends.  .  .  .  While  I  was  still  awkward  and 
timid  in  1822  he  took  me  by  the  hand  and  acted  toward  me 
the  part  of  a  gentle  and  encouraging  instructor.  He,  emphat- 
ically, opened  my  mind,  and  taught  me  how  to  think."  ^ 
But  teacher  and  scholar  were  built  on  entirely  different  lines. 
Whately  was  a  loud  and  breezy  conversationalist,  brimful  of 
accurate  information  on  many  subjects,  and  by  no  means  loth 
to  impart  it.  He  overflowed  with  rough  humor,  and  was 
impervious  to  self-reproach  for  his  numerous  breaches  of 
university  etiquette.  Imbued  with  a  resolute  sense  of  jus- 
tice; zealous,  courageous,  conscientious,  he  boldly  en- 
countered obstruction  and  misconception,  and  rendered 
valuable  service  to  the  cause  of  education  and  of  a  reasonable 
religious  belief.  In  his  intercourse  he  was  wont  to  use  others 
as  instruments  by  which  to  shape  and  define  his  own  views, 
a  habit  the  more  readily  cultivated  because  of  his  freedom 
from  party  spirit. 

Newman  was  equally  steadfast  and  uncompromising.  By 
this  time  the  seductive  charm  of  his  fascinating  per- 
sonality, so  mild  yet  so  invincible,  began  to  assert  itself  in 
unmistakable  ways.  He  spoke  and  acted  as  the  man  of 
interior  life  who  held  the  secret  of  an  illimitable  purpose, 
which  in  the  eyes  of  his  associates  invested  him  with  an 
indefinable  superiority.  His  combination  of  gentle  manners 
and  responsive  kindness  with  unseizable  reserve  and  inca- 
pacity for  subordination  was  a  deceptive  but  formidable 
obstacle  between  him  and  Whately.  They  began  to  drift 
apart :  Whately  openly,  and  Newman  tacitly,  resented  inter- 
ference, and  the  more  the  older  man  provoked  the  younger 
one's  independence,  the  nearer  they  came  to  the  inevitable 
separation.     Newman  seems  to  have  forced  the  issue,  and 

*  "Apologia"  ;   p.  11. 
2a 


450      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

confessed  that  although  he  had  meant  to  dedicate  his  first 
book  to  Whately,  the  intention  was  abandoned,  and  that 
after  the  year  1834,  Whately  "made  himself  dead  to  me." 
Dr.  Abbott  asserts  that  Newman  was  mainly  responsible 
for  the  rupture.^  He  spoke  of  the  anguish  which  it  inflicted 
on  him  to  pass  Whately  in  the  street  coldly,  but  this  senti- 
ment was  hardly  consistent  with  the  tone  of  a  letter  which  he 
wrote  to  the  now  Archbishop,  and  in  which  he  said:  "On 
honest  reflection  I  cannot  conceal  from  myself  that  it  was 
generally  a  relief  to  see  so  little  of  your  Grace  when  you  were 
in  Oxford ;  and  it  is  a  greater  relief  now  to  have  an  opportu- 
nity of  saying  so  to  yourself."  He  proceeded  to  explain  at 
great  length  his  reasons  for  this  extraordinary  statement,  so 
charged  with  personal  feeling.  Whately's  support  of  the 
Irish  Church  Temporalities  Act,  passed  in  August  14,  1833, 
which  prospectively  abolished  two  archbishoprics,  and  re- 
duced the  suft'ragan  bishoprics  by  consolidation  from  eighteen 
to  ten,  had  provoked  a  painful  resentment  in  Newman,  who 
referred  with  utter  aversion  to  the  secular  and  unbelieving 
policy  in  which  Whately  was  implicated.  The  letter  men- 
tioned, which  was  a  mixture  of  piety  and  presumption,  was 
written  in  1834,  when  Newman  was  no  more  than  an  ordinary 
member  of  the  University,  while  Whately,  who  had  been 
warmly  attached  to  him,  was  his  senior,  his  former  patron, 
and  a  high  dignitary  of  the  Anglican  hierarchy.  Evidently 
these  considerations  counted  for  little.  However  Newman 
may  protest  that  "in  memory"  there  were  few  men  whom 
he  loved  so  much  as  Whately,  the  Archbishop  was  no  longer 
of  consequence.  Newman's  sentiment  toward  him  was  not 
one  of  personal  hostility,  but  rather  of  ecclesiastical  and 
theological  antipathy.  More  than  a  year  previously  he 
had  said  in  a  letter  to  Bowden,  "As  to  poor  Whately,  it  is 
melancholy.  Of  course,  to  know  him  now  is  quite  impossible, 
yet  he  has  so  many  good  qualities  that  it  is  impossible  also 
not  to  feel  for  him  ...  for  a  man  more  void  of,  what  are 

1  "Anglican  Career  of  Cardinal  Newman"  ;    Vol.  I,  p.  304. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  451 

commonly  called,  selfish  ends  does  not  exist."  ^  Such  an 
attitude  explains  the  fatality  which  beset  so  many  of  New- 
man's associations.  He  frequently  expressed  it  in  passages 
similar  to  that  which  declares  that  "  every  individual  soul  is  a 
closed  world,  and  that  the  most  intimate  friendship  does  not 
succeed  in  penetrating  the  solid  wall  behind  which  each  of  us^ 
in  spite  of  himself,  is  hiding."  ^  As  yet  only  the  surface 
of  his  spirit  had  been  ruffled  by  the  first  gust  which 
heralded  other  storms.  It  had  flung  up  its  chill  spray,  and 
sunk  again  to  suave  placidity.  But  anger  in  any  form  is  a 
great  revealer,  and  no  air  of  high-bred  indifference  toward 
those  who  did  not  agree  with  his  unyielding  certitude  could 
effectually  conceal  the  reservations  to  which  even  New- 
man's admirers  have  never  been  quite  reconciled.^ 

He  was  ordained  on  Trinity  Sunday,  June  13,  1824,  and 
at  the  suggestion  of  Edward  Bouverie  Pusey,  also  a  fellow 
of  Oriel,  he  became  curate  of  St.  Clement's  Church,  Oxford. 
He  had  felt  a  preference  for  foreign  missionary  work,  which 
accentuated  his  desire  to  be  free  from  any  domestic  rela- 
tionships, and  he  began  to  practice  those  abstentions  in 
which  religious  enthusiasm  takes  shape  in  sacrifice.  The 
heart  which  could  but  durst  not  love  remained  faithful  to 
the  vow  never  to  surrender  to  any  creature  that  which  was 
meant  for  God  alone.     He  questioned  the  direction  of  his 

1" Letters  and  Correspondence";  Vol.  I,  p.  395.  Five  years  later  he 
and  Whately  met.  "He  is  so  good-hearted  a  man  that  it  passed  off  well,"  was 
Newman's  comment.  (Ibid.,  II,  p.  238.)  A  friend  looking  back  to  a  day  when 
Whately,  then  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  was  in  Oxford,"  remembers  accusing  Mr. 
Newman  to  his  face  of  being  able  to  cast  aside  his  friends  without  a  thought, 
when  they  fairly  took  part  against  what  he  considered  the  truth."  {Ibid., 
Vol.  I,  p.  88.) 

*  Bremond  :    "The  Mystery  of  Newman";    p.  29. 

'  The  inferences  which  Dr.  Abbott  draws  from  Newman's  letter  to 
Whately  appear  to  be  somewhat  overstrained.  The  reader  is  referred  to 
the  entire  correspondence  contained  in  the  second  volume  of  Newman's 
Letters,  pp.  61-63.  Mozley  says,  "He  would  have  been  ready  to  love  and 
admire  Whately  to  the  end,  but  for  the  inexorable  condition  of  friendship 
imposed  by  Whately,  absolute  and  implicit  agreement  in  thought,  word, 
and  deed.  This  agreement,  from  the  first,  Newman  could  not  accord.'l 
"Reminiscences";    Vol.   I,   pp.   29-30. 


452   THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

life,  whither  it  was  leading  him,  and  of  what  worth  it  was  to 
other  souls,  with  a  startling  perspicacity.  These  unusual 
refinements  of  thought  and  aim,  seldom  found  in  one  so 
young,  were  reflected  in  his  physical  appearance.  James 
Anthony  Froude  described  him  as  "  above  the  middle  height, 
slight  and  spare.  His  head  was  large,  his  face  remarkably 
like  that  of  Julius  Csesar,  The  forehead,  the  shape  of  the 
ears  and  the  nose,  were  almost  the  same.  The  lines  of  the 
mouth  were  very  peculiar,  and  I  should  say  exactly  the  same. 
I  have  often  thought  of  the  resemblance,  and  believe  it 
extended  to  temperament.  In  both  there  was  an  original 
force  of  character  which  refused  to  be  moulded  by  circum- 
stances, which  was  to  make  its  own  way,  and  become  a  power 
in  the  world ;  clearness  of  intellectual  perception,  a  disdain 
for  conventionalities,  a  temper  imperious  and  wilful,  but 
along  with  it  a  most  attaching  gentleness,  sweetness,  single- 
ness of  heart  and  purpose.  Both  were  formed  by  nature  to 
command  others,  both  had  the  faculty  of  attracting  to  them- 
selves the  passionate  devotion  of  their  friends  and  followers, 
and  in  both  cases,  too,  perhaps  the  devotion  was  rather  due 
to  the  personal  ascendency  of  the  leader  than  to  the  cause 
which  he  represented.  It  was  Caesar,  not  the  principles  of 
the  empire,  which  overthrew  Pompey  and  the  constitution. 
'  Credo  in  Newmannum '  was  a  common  phrase  at  Oxford, 
and  is  still  unconsciously  the  faith  of  nine  tenths  of  the  Eng- 
lish converts  to  Rome."  ^ 

The  clerical  cast  of  his  countenance  was  diminished  by  its 
Dantean  severity,  which  indicated  an  exalted  and  influential 
personality,  animated  by  a  passion  for  divine  truth  and  for 
a  better  order  of  daily  life.  In  his  social  interchanges  he 
was  at  once  simple  and  complex,  reserved  and  approachable, 
constrained  and  genial.  These  opposite  qualities  drew  to  him 
many  and  very  different  men  who  found  in  their  variety 
some  common  interest.  Meanwhile,  as  Dr.  Barry  observes, 
he  paid  the  penalty  of  genius  in  a  deepening  solitude ;    a 

>  "The  Oxford  Counter-Reformation"  in  "Short  Studies";    Vol.  IV. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  453 

shadowy  figure  in  those  days,  his  feet  were  set  upon  a  strange 
path  toward  a  goal  which  few  foresaw  and  from  which  there 
was  no  turning.  After  Hurrell  Froude's  death  no  one  took 
his  place  in  Newman's  affections.  Never  again  did  he  sur- 
render the  pass  key  to  his  spirit :  the  strong  man  armed  kept 
his  own  house,  and  during  the  spiritual  conflict  of  his  last 
phase  at  Oxford,  he  excluded  even  those  who  stood  nearest 
to  him,  and  went  forward  almost  without  witnesses. 

II 

The  reaction  from  the  creed  of  Calvinism  had  long  been 
felt  when  this  youthful  recluse  entered  Trinity  College.  At 
first  the  continental  reformers  won  a  widening  way  in  Angli- 
canism, and  during  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  cen- 
turies the  "Institutes"  of  the  Genevan  theologian  prevailed 
at  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  Archbishop  Whitgift  had  striven 
to  amend  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  by  inserting  in  them  the 
salient  features  of  Calvin's  doctrines.  Those  doctrines 
thrived  because  they  constituted  an  authoritative  standard 
against  the  inroads  of  the  Jesuit  controversialists,  and  in- 
stilled those  religious  and  political  convictions  which  pro- 
tected the  integrity  of  the  nation  and  of  the  Church 
against  the  intrigues  of  the  Papacy.  But  they  also  usurped 
the  Protestant  right  of  private  judgment  by  an  arbitrary- 
theory  of  Biblical  interpretation.  The  Calvinists  deified  the 
Scriptures,  the  Romanists  deified  the  Church,  Both  rever- 
enced the  framework  of  religion  to  the  detriment  of  religion 
itself.     Presently  the  Independents  began  to  complain  that 

"  New  presbyter  is  but  old  priest  writ  large," 

and  at  the  other  extreme  the  hierarchical  tendencies  of  the 
Church  of  England  reasserted  themselves.  The  episcopate 
and  the  Sacraments  were  elevated  until  they  became  repug- 
nant to  Puritans  of  every  stripe.  Ritual  grew  more  sacerdo- 
tal in  meaning  and  more  profuse  in  display.     The  warfare 


454     THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

between  the  factionists  increased  in  virulence.  The  stiff- 
necked  individuahsm  of  the  sectaries  was  forever  associated 
with  great  deeds  and  great  men,  but  it  antagonized  that 
veneration  for  the  solidarity  of  the  visible  Church  and  for  its 
governing  priesthood  which  prevailed  in  the  Laudian  school. 
The  articles  of  predestination  and  election  were  deprecated 
by  those  who  argued  that  Christian  life  and  history,  as 
vouched  for  by  personal  experience,  rested  on  a  more  enduring 
basis  than  arbitrary  decrees. 

These  factors  in  the  evolution  of  Anglicanism  had  their 
sources  in  racial  sentiment,  in  political  and  religious  quarrels, 
in  the  statecraft  of  princes  and  bishops,  and,  supremely,  in 
the  ceaseless  energies  which  resulted  from  even  a  limited 
degree  of  the  freedom  which  such  leaders  as  Milton 
appropriated  to  the  fullest  extent.  The  toleration  eventu- 
ally forced  upon  Englishmen  by  their  struggles  for  civil  and 
religious  equality  led  to  a  placidity  and  contentment  that 
induced  the  lassitude  and  decay  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
which,  in  turn,  gave  an  opportunity  to  the  Evangelical 
Revival. 

Newman's  search  for  a  divine  philosophy  confronted  these 
peculiarities  of  opinion  in  the  forms  in  which  they  had  passed 
over  into  his  era.  The  Noetics,  who  questioned  everything 
in  order  to  ascertain  its  characteristics  and  external  relations, 
belonged  to  the  rationalistic  group  in  that  they  subjected 
orthodoxy  to  reason.  They  had  introduced  Newman  to  a 
larger  world  where  the  beliefs  of  his  home  life  lost  their 
significance.  Hawkins,  not  yet  Provost  of  Oriel,  taught  him 
that  the  Bible  was  to  be  understood  in  the  light  of  a  living 
tradition.  From  Wliately  he  learned  that  the  Christian 
Church  was  a  divine  appointment,  and,  as  a  substantial 
visible  body,  independent  of  the  State,  endowed  with  rights, 
prerogatives,  and  powers  of  its  own.  His  pastoral  service 
at  St.  Clement's  convinced  him  that  the  faith  he  had  received 
from  John  Newton  and  Thomas  Scott  would  not  work  in  a 
parish,  and  that  Calvinism  was  not  a  key  to  the  phenomena 


JOHN    HENRY    NEWMAN  455 

of  hiunan  nature  as  they  occur  in  the  world.  His  alienation 
from  these  doctrines  was  a  gradual  process,  extending  over 
his  first  phase  at  Oriel,  and  some  traces  of  their  former  hold 
upon  him  remained  visible  to  the  end.  But  from  the  moment 
he  came  to  Oxford  the  doom  of  his  earliest  creed  was  assured. 
Its  emotional  and  peculiar  content  was  subordinated  to 
an  objective  and  concrete  faith,  succeeded  by  a  dogmatic 
ecclesiasticism  that  found  its  logical  conclusion  in  the  Church 
of  Rome.  His  restless  spirit  showed  its  dissatisfaction  with 
the  specific  gifts  of  these  transitory  states  to  his  peace  and 
welfare,  nor  was  his  assurance  so  perfected  as  to  be  beyond 
disturbance,  even  in  the  final  outcome. 

As  we  have  seen,  he  was  a  dreamer,  full  of  eloquent  and 
radiant  imageries,  and  a  poet,  having  the  poetical  tempera- 
ment and  mastery  of  poetic  form  which  exuded  an  atmos- 
phere redolent  of  his  own  personality.  The  higher  loveliness 
which  springs  out  of  poignant  introspection  suffused  his 
utterances.  Dr.  E.  A.  Abbott  complained  that  NeA\Tnan's 
imagination  dominated  his  reason ;  it  certainly  carried 
him  far  away  from  the  charted  routes  of  investigation. 
The  undue  subjectivism,  not  to  say  egoism,  of  his  nature 
received  no  salutary  restraint  from  the  best  results  of 
modern  thought.  He  had  none  of  that  admirable  curiosity 
which  would  have  driven  him  to  inquire  of  those  experts  in 
philosophy  and  religion  who  had  recreated  the  ideas  of  some 
of  his  contemporaries.  Dean  Stanley  exclaimed :  "  How 
different  the  fortunes  of  the  Church  of  England  if  Newman 
had  been  able  to  read  German  !  "  Mark  Pattison  declared 
that  all  the  grand  development  of  human  reason,  from 
Aristotle  to  Hegel,  was  a  sealed  book  to  Newman,  who 
himself  confessed  in  old  age,  "I  never  read  a  word  of  Kant, 
I  never  read  a  word  of  Coleridge." 

Nor  was  his  imagination,  when  left  to  itself,  at  all  flexible. 
Underneath  its  surface  fluctuations  he  was  conscious  of 
a  hardness  and  a  centralization  which  nothing  beyond 
him  could  touch.     "I  have  changed  in  many  things,"   he 


456      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

said,  "in  this  I  have  not  changed.  From  the  age  of  fifteen 
dogma  has  been  the  fundamental  principle  of  my  religion; 
I  cannot  enter  into  the  idea  of  any  other  sort  of  religion ; 
religion,  as  a  mere  sentiment,  is  to  me  a  dream  and  a  mockery. 
As  well  can  there  be  filial  love  without  the  fact  of  a  father,  as 
devotion  without  the  fact  of  a  Supreme  Being.  What  I  held 
in  1816,  I  held  in  1833,  and  I  hold  in  1864.  Please  God,  I 
shall  hold  it  to  the  end.  Even  when  I  was  under  Dr.  Whate- 
ly's  influence  I  had  no  temptation  to  be  less  zealous  for  the 
great  dogmas  of  the  faith."  ^  For  Newman,  Christian  belief 
and  character  were  determined  by  an  unquestioning  accept- 
ance of  this  position.  He  wrought  earnestly  to  understand 
and  apply  credal  statements  received  upon  authority,  which 
he  believed  could  not  be  neglected  without  incurring  Heaven's 
displeasure.  His  reliance  was  increasingly  placed  upon  the 
Church  and  her  institutions.  Moored  to  this  anchorage,  he 
felt  that  he  was  safe  and  better  able  to  measure  the  strength 
of  the  currents  which  bore  mankind  either  from  or  toward  her 
welcome  haven.  Under  her  protection,  he  craved  a  close 
fellowship  with  God,  compared  with  which  the  honors  and 
intercourse  of  the  University  sank  into  nothingness.  The 
prizes  and  emoluments  others  coveted  never  allured  him ; 
fame  itself  was  but  a  mere  breath,  an  empty  sound,  a  vibra- 
tion of  the  air  in  words.  The  maxims  of  Thomas  Scott, 
"Holiness  rather  than  Peace,"  and  "Growth  the  only  evi- 
dence of  Life,"  were  his  chosen  guides,  the  mottoes  of  a 
heart  intent  on  the  vision  of  eternal  realities  through  the 
medium  of  the  divine  society  on  earth. 

His  unquestioning  acceptance  of  the  ipsissima  verba  of 
Holy  Writ  was  another  evidence  of  the  innate  conservatism 
which  blended  with  his  progressiveness,  another  tribute  of  his 
spirit  to  the  stability  of  the  historic  past.  From  first  to  last 
he  treated  every  text,  every  expression,  every  emblem,  every 
idea  the  Bible  contained  as  a  settled  and  saving  truth,  to  be 
developed  later,  perhaps,  by  the  Church,  but  never  to  be 

1  "Apologia"  ;  p.  49. 


JOHN    HENRY   NEWMAN  457 

doubted.  His  severe  adherence  to  concrete  and  explicit 
authority  found  an  outlet  in  this  notion  of  Biblical  infalli- 
bility, which  he  maintained  practically  unmodified  after  his 
submission  to  Rome.  Unafraid  of  the  inconsistency  which 
is  "the  hobgoblin  of  little  minds,"  he  carried  to  the  Roman 
Cardinalate  one  of  the  basic  teachings  of  his  hereditary  Prot- 
estantism. Anything  savoring  of  exegetical  research  and 
criticism  was  distasteful  to  him,  and  if  the  results  of  construc- 
tive scholarship  trespassed  on  his  theological  dogmatism  he 
promptly  ignored  them.  For  him,  at  this  stage,  spiritual 
culture  was  synonymous  with  absolute  trust  in  the  Holy 
Scriptures  and  in  the  Church  of  England  as  their  guardian. 
Contradictions  could  no  more  be  permitted  in  the  prescribed 
principles  of  religion  than  in  those  of  astronomy  or  chemistry. 
On  the  entire  issue  he  might  well  have  held  the  Authorized 
Version  inspired  for  any  critical  use  he  ever  made  of  it. 
A  keen  observer  has  remarked  that  whereas  the  Vatican 
Council  had  declared  the  whole  Bible  has  God  for  its  author, 
Newman's  belief  was  that  God  was  its  editor. 

Blanco  White  detected  these  strivings  between  the  old  and  I 
the  new,  and  predicted  that  Newman's  preference  for  history  I 
over  experience  as  the  revelation  of  whatever  was  true  and 
holy  would  unfailingly  draw  him  within  Latin  Christianity, 
the  home  of  that  conception.  White  was  qualified  to  judge  : 
he  had  formerly  been  a  priest  in  Spain,  was  afterwards  an 
Oxford  man,  a  traveler,  a  student  of  literatures,  and  a  power- 
ful writer  on  philosophical  and  religious  subjects  untroubled 
by  the  thoughts  of  yesterday.  But  his  volatile  and  erratic 
temperament  could  exercise  no  restraint  upon  Newman,  now 
beset  by  a  host  of  reflections  he  revealed  to  none.  On  the 
very  day  he  fulfilled  White's  prophecy  and  accepted  the  rule 
of  Rome,  White  himself  renounced  that  of  Canterbury: 
thus  they  separated,  journeying  in  opposite  directions. 
Chief  among  the  reflections  mentioned  was  the  persuasion 
that  an  inevitable  nemesis  and  reaction  permeated  life,  an 
idea  which  rendered  Newman  sensitive  to  signs  and  tokens 


458      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

in  whatever  happened.  Ordinary  events  were  viewed  in  the 
light  of  a  special  Providence,  which  graciously  intervened 
to  provide  these  stepping  stones  on  a  dark  and  perilous  road. 
His  daily  routine  was  never  in  his  own  keeping,  his  ordinations 
were  from  above.  Confident  of  this,  he  became  impersonal 
in  his  ambitions,  cherishing  his  calling  as  Christ's  anointed 
messenger  beyond  any  other  pursuit,  and  saying  of  it : 

"Deep  in  my  heart  that  gift  I  hide, 

I  change  it  not  away 
For  patriot  warrior's  hour  of  pride 

Or  statesman's  tranquil  sway ; 
For  poet's  fire,  or  pleader's  skill 
To  pierce  the  soul  and  tame  the  will." 

His  break  with  Whately  was  due,  not  as  some  have  as- 
serted, to  their  disagreement  over  Sir  Robert  Peel's  candida- 
ture at  Oxford  as  the  reluctant  advocate  of  Catholic  Emanci- 
pation, when  Newman  was  found  in  the  camp  of  vociferous 
Orangemen  and  No-Popery  zealots,  but  to  his  growing  separa- 
tion from  the  Noetics,  whose  offense  lay  in  their  being  the 
forerunners  of  a  reasonable  theology.  Equally  dissatisfied 
with  the  immovable  orthodoxy  of  Evangelicals  and  the  dull 
pompous  inertness  of  High  Churchmen,  the  Noetics  dis- 
countenanced both  factions  and  cultivated  a  spirit  of  modera- 
tion and  sympathy  impossible  within  either.  Newman's 
Evangelicalism  had  not  deterred  them  from  receiving  him 
with  respect  and  kindness,  nor  was  the  broadening  effect 
of  their  intimacy  entirely  lost  upon  him.  On  the  contrary, 
Dr.  Wilfred  Ward  states  that  as  a  thinker  pure  and  simple, 
although  confined  in  range,  his  reputation  was  never  more 
deserved  than  when  he  was  under  their  spell.^  But 
he  could  not  permanently  identify  himself  with  what  he 
conceived  to  be  the  nebulous  tlieories  of  a  few  intellectual 
aristocrats  who  did  not  even  agree  among  themselves.  As 
an  Evangelical,  he  had  far  more  in  common  with  Catholic 

^  "  Life  of  John  Henry  Cardinal  Newman  "  ;  Vol.  I,  p.  38. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  459 

teaching  than  with  a  Rationalism,  however  disguised,  which 
held  all  formularies  at  arm's  length.  The  same  may  be  said 
of  other  notable  seceders :  Sibthorp,  Manning,  Ryder,  Dods- 
worth,  Hope-Scott,  Noel,  Faber,  and  the  Wilberforces  "pro- 
ceeded from  Oxford  to  Rome  as  they  had  already  marched 
from  Clapham  to  Oxford." 

In  1826  Newman  resigned  the  curacy  of  St.  Clement's 
to  become  one  of  the  four  public  tutors  at  Oriel.  And  now 
the  friend  and  companion  who  finally  vanquished  his  tenta- 
tive and  short-lived  liberalism  appeared  upon  the  scene,  the 
"bright  and  beautiful"  Hurrell  Froude,  who  was  destined  to 
have  a  part  in  Newman's  inspiration  and  recollection  analo- 
gous to  that  which  Arthur  Hallam  had  in  Tennyson's  "In 
Memoriam."  He  was  the  eldest  son  of  Archdeacon  Robert 
Hurrell  Froude,  of  Totnes,  Devon,  a  High  Churclunan  of  the 
most  extreme  and  exclusive  type,  who  loathed  Puritanism, 
denounced  the  Evangelicals,  and  brought  up  his  sons 
to  do  the  same.  The  aged  President  of  Magdalen  College, 
Dr.  Martin  Routh,  a  relic  of  the  far  past,  represented  this 
nearly  extinct  cult  at  Oxford  long  before  and  after  the  Trac- 
tarians  had  resuscitated  it.  Hurrell  Froude  thus  conveyed 
to  Newman's  mind  an  indoctrination  hitherto  alien  to  its 
experience ;  he  became  the  living  bridge  over  which  Newman 
passed  from  the  Evangelical  to  the  Catholic  conception  of 
Anghcanism.  During  the  first  stages  of  the  Oxford  Move- 
ment, Froude  was  its  most  pervasive  force,  and  the  after- 
glow of  his  personality  lingered  long  subsequently  to  his  short 
day.  He  caricatured  and  mocked  the  vacillations  and  com- 
promises of  Erastianism,  assailing  with  unsparing  invective 
its  surrender  of  the  heroical  attributes  of  High  Churchman- 
ship  and  its  insular  and  egregious  complacency.  These  de- 
fects were  contrasted  with  the  bold  and  consistent  policies 
of  the  Holy  See,  for  which  he  openly  avowed  his  affection. 
A  rash  and  adventurous  critic,  without  accurate  information 
on  many  issues  he  presumed  to  determine,  Froude  rejoiced  in 
the  little  he  knew  about  the  Puritans,  since  it  gave  hiin  a 


460      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS    OF    OXFORD 

better  right  to  hate  John  Milton,  whom  Newman  also  re- 
proached as  contaminated  by  evil  times  and  the  waywardness 
of  a  proud  heart.^  Froude  adored  Charles  I,  and  venerated 
Archbishop  Laud,  whose  apparition  Newman  gravely 
declared  might  even  then  be  found  in  Oxford,  anxiously 
awaiting  the  developments  of  events. 

Froude's  extravagances  were  probably  intensified  by  his 
prolonged  illness,  which  ended  his  life  when  he  was  not  yet 
thirty-three.  While  he  lived,  the  light  of  battle  was  in  his 
eye,  and  as  though  prescient  of  death,  he  eagerly  spread  a 
feverish  restlessness  among  the  Tractarians,  who  received  his 
reckless  statements  with  avidity.  These  he  proclaimed  in 
the  temper  of  a  zealot,  describing  himself  as  a  priest  of  the  one 
Holy  Catholic  Church  allowed  by  her  Divine  Lord  to  mani- 
fest herself  in  Great  Britain,  and  engaging  his  loyalty  to  her 
and  to  her  alone.  Other  Protestant  communions,  English  or 
continental,  were  the  objects  of  his  violent  detestation  and 
abuse.  Their  great  institutions,  no  matter  how  beneficial, 
were  viewed  satirically.  The  variety  of  his  gifts,  the  vehe- 
mence of  his  ecclesiasticism,  and  his  insatiable  craving  for 
sympathy  endeared  him  to  kindred  spirits,  who  could  not 
resist  his  unrestrained  outpourings,  even  when  these  did  not 
win  their  entire  approval. 

Dean  Church  has  suggested  that  Froude's  intemperate 
language  and  demeanor,  which  in  some  instances  came  near 
to  ill-bred  and  useless  folly,  were  such  as  could  be  easily 
misinterpreted  by  those  not  admitted  to  his  confidence,  and 
that  his  insolent  pronouncements  were  uttered  at  random  and 
not  intended  for  the  public  ear.  The  Dean  added  that 
friends, were  pained  and  disturbed,  while  foes  exulted  over 
such  disclosures  of  the  animus  of  the  Oxford  Movement.  But 
the  editors  of  the  "Remains,"  of  whom  Newman  was  one, 
asserted  that,  "  right  or  wrong,  they  were  his  deliberate  opin- 
ions, and  cannot  be  left  out  of  consideration  in  a  complete 
estimate  of  Froude's  character  and  principles.     The  off-hand, 

*  "Letters  and  Correspondence"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  195. 


JOHN    HENRY   NEWMAN  461 

unpremeditated  way  in  which  they  seemed  to  dart  out  of  him, 
hke  sparks  from  a  luminous  body,  proved  only  a  mind  en- 
tirely possessed  with  the  subject,  glowing  as  it  were  through 
and  through."  ^  The  volume  speaks  for  itself  and  for  the 
incurable  provincialism  and  ignorance  that  infest  its  pages, 
in  which  violence  of  assertion  was  the  ideal  method,  assertion 
that  sought  no  ultimate  proof  higher  than  prejudice.  It 
abounds  in  flouts,  jibes,  and  sneers;  exhibiting  those  pre- 
possessions which  corrupted  the  history  and  also  cramped  the 
intellectual  processes  of  the  entire  group  for  whom  Froude 
was  an  apostle.  Neither  he  nor  they  realized  that  a  church- 
manship  imbedded  in  dread  of  democracy,  in  separatism, 
and  in  uncharitableness  toward  its  rivals  and  opponents, 
could  not  withstand  the  strain  of  crisis. 

James  Anthony  Froude,  the  younger  brother,  described 
Hurrell  as  one  who  went  forward,  taking  the  fences  as  they 
came,  and  sweeping  his  friends  along  with  him.  Hugh 
James  Rose  distrusted  him  from  the  first,  and  the  descrip- 
tion of  Froude's  position  as  that  of  a  Catholic  without  the 
Popery  and  a  Church  of  England  man  without  the  Protes- 
tantism made  many  others  distrust  him,  and  irritated  those 
who  regarded  these  as  irreconcilable  terms.  But  he  pene- 
trated Newman's  proud  isolation  to  such  a  degree  that  the 
latter  was  unable  to  write  with  confidence  unless  he  had 
received  the  imprimatur  of  Froude :  "  He  was  one  of  the 
acutest  and  clearest  and  deepest  men  in  the  memory  of 
man,"  avowed  Newman.  Other  equally  keen  and  far  more 
sagacious  thinkers  were  avoided  or  forsaken  because  their 
ability  to  conserve  spiritual  interests  was  distrusted.  New- 
man's self-knowledge  was  not  balanced  by  a  sufficient  knowl- 
edge of  his  fellow  creatures.  Hence  he  admitted  within  the 
sacred  walls  of  his  individuality  this  hectic  young  dogmatist, 
who  helped  to  make  him  a  resolute  and  aggressive  Church- 
man, aglow  for  the  Catholic  Anglicanism  Newman  was  after- 

'  Preface,  "Remains  of  the  Late  Reverend  Richard  Hurrell  Froude"; 
p.  20. 


462      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

wards  to  renounce  and  ridicule.  "He  taught  me,"  said 
Froude's  illustrious  pupil,  "  to  look  with  admiration  towards 
the  Church  of  Rome,  and  in  the  same  degree  to  dislike 
Puritanism.  He  fixed  deep  in  me  the  idea  of  devotion  to  the 
Blessed  Virgin  and  he  led  me  to  believe  in  the  Real  Pres- 
ence." ^  How  much  farther  Froude  would  have  proceeded 
toward  Rome  had  he  lived  is  a  speculation.  True  to  his 
origin  he  seemed  well  intrenched  in  Anglicanism,  and  just 
before  his  death  declared  his  faith  in  it  as  a  branch  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  with  the  right  of  apostolical  succession 
in  its  ministry  and  free  from  sinful  terms  in  its  communion. 
But  the  "Apologia"  shows  how  firmly  and  how  far  he 
planted  Newman's  feet  on  the  road  toward  secession.  It 
also  delineates  Froude  as  so  many  sided  that  it  would  be 
presumptuous  to  attempt  to  describe  him,  except  under  those 
aspects  in  which  he  came  before  Newman  himself.  He 
speaks  of  this  man  of  dew  and  fire  as  gentle  and  tender ;  of 
the  free  elasticity  and  graceful  versatility  of  his  mind,  and  the 
patient  and  winning  considerateness  in  discussion  which 
endeared  him  to  those  to  whom  he  opened  his  heart.  Depict- 
ing a  very  different  Froude  than  the  one  the  "Remains" 
presents,  Newman  extolled  him  as  "  a  high  genius,  brimful 
and  overflowing  with  ideas  and  views,  in  him  original,  which 
were  too  many  and  too  strong  even  for  his  bodily  strength, 
and  which  crowded  and  jostled  against  each  other  in  their 
effort  after  distinct  shape  and  expression."  ^  Bereaved  of  his 
companionship,  he  took  refuge  in  verse  — 

"Oh  dearest !  with  a  word  he  could  dispel 
All  questioning,  and  raise 
Our  hearts  to  rapture,  whispering  all  was  well 
And  turning  prayer  to  praise, 
And  other  secrets  too  he  could  declare, 
By  patterns  all  divine. 
His  earthly  creed  retouching  here  and  there, 
And  deepening  every  line." 

*  "Apologia"  ;   p.  25.  *  Ibid.,  p.  24. 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  463 

The  significant  achievement  of  Fronde's  brief  career,  as 
he  himself  regarded  it,  and  the  one  on  which  he  dwelt  with 
satisfaction,  is  related  in  the  "Remains,"  where  he  inquires : 
"  Do  you  know  the  story  of  the  murderer  who  had  done  one 
good  thing  in  his  life?  Well,  if  I  were  asked  what  good 
deed  I  had  ever  done,  I  should  say  that  I  had  brought  Keble 
and  Newman  to  understand  each  other."  There  was  need 
of  this,  for  Keble  had  suspected  Newman  of  the  taint  of 
Evangelicalism.  Nor  did  they  at  any  time  enter  into  the 
closest  and  most  sympathetic  intercourse ;  Newman's 
nature  precluded  such  affinities,  and  rendered  him  superior 
rather  than  fraternal.  Like  Napoleon  on  his  way  to  Elba, 
his  thoughts  were  his  only  real  companions.  He  was  never 
fully  alive  to  the  fact  that  a  man's  life  consists  in  the  relations 
he  bears  to  others  —  is  made  or  marred  by  those  relations, 
guided  by  them,  judged  by  them,  and  expressed  in  them. 
That  Christianity  from  the  first  had  been  a  social  and  not  a 
solitary  religion,  and  that  aspirants  after  its  ideals  cannot 
run  counter  to  this  truth,  did  not  seem  to  occur  to  him.  The 
instinct  for  human  fellowship  was  foreign  to  his  breast. 
The  relaxation,  the  joy,  the  refreshment  which  belong  to  the 
fellowship  of  saints  were  sacrificed  to  those  grand  designs 
which  he  carried  from  childhood  up  to  manhood  and  on  to 
old  age. 

Even  Froude  was  far  from  being  Newman's  alter  ego ;  in 
many  respects  he  was  of  a  contrary  as  well  as  a  complemen- 
tary temperament,  abounding  in  traits  which  Newman  either 
suppressed  or  did  not  have.  Froude,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
nothing  if  not  original,  daring,  thorough,  open ;  delighting 
in  publicity  and  abrupt  effective  sallies.  Newman's  shrewd 
judgments  of  the  foibles  and  follies  of  the  many  were  re- 
served for  the  few :  and  even  they  were  kept  in  suspense  as 
to  what  he  really  thought.  Yet  like  most  people  who  follow 
an  elusive  labyrinth,  he  was  deficient  in  prevision,  and  did 
not  anticipate  the  vigorous  resentment  which  his  neatly 
arranged  plans  excited.     Both  men  were  engrossed  with  the 


464      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

theory  of  a  complete  hierarchical  system,  and  of  a  sacerdotal 
power  which  granted  the  fullest  liberty  to  ecclesiastical 
prerogatives  at  the  expense  of  every  other  kind  of  freedom. 
Froude,  in  particular,  had  an  almost  superstitious  reverence 
for  the  physical  despotisms  and  spiritual  transcendencies  of 
the  saints  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Thus  the  Oxford  Catholics  occupied  a  region  filled  in  its 
upper  ranges  with  courage,  determination,  and  the  spirit  of 
sacrifice,  but  poisoned  on  its  lower  levels  by  a  miasma 
that  has  bred  misunderstanding  and  division.  The  one 
man  who  bymutual  consent  of  all  parties  lived  on  the  heights, 
secure  and  serene,  was  John  Keble,  vicar  of  Hursley. 
Homely  and  unambitious,  it  seemed  strange  that  this  retiring 
and  sequestered  clergyman  should  have  been  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal factors  in  the  most  important  religious  movement  of  his 
day.  His  personality  was  not  easy  to  analyze :  and  as  a  re- 
sult, opinions  about  him  have  not  been  free  from  confusion. 
A  rigid  sacerdotalist,  he  divided  the  human  family  into  three 
classes :  Christians,  properly  so  called ;  Catholics,  Jews,  and 
Mohammedans ;  heretics,  heathen,  and  unbelievers.  Yet, 
while  knowing  little  of  the  magnitude  of  mind  which  is  in- 
comparably above  any  other  intellectual  endowment,  he  had 
generous  views  of  life  within  certain  marked  limitations, 
disapproving  the  severities  of  William  Law,  and  remarking 
that  even  the  "Imitation  of  Christ"  should  be  read  with 
caution.  He  adopted  Butler's  dictum  that  Probability, 
not  demonstration,  is  the  guide  of  life,  to  which  he  always 
adhered,  and  the  robust  polemic  of  Warburton  was  also 
congenial  to  the  more  masculine  features  of  his  nature.^  His 
writings  were  as  diversified  as  his  intellectual  character. 
They  contained  the  most  exquisite  passages  and  stanzas 
mingled  with  almost  unintelligible  references  based  upon  his 
conceptions  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Church  and  the  Bible. 
Acting  under  an  impulse  that  had  its  source  in  beliefs  which 
many  educated  men  had  abandoned,  he  endeavored  to  substi- 

»  "Dictionary  of  National  Biography"  ;    Vol.  XXX,  pp.  291-295. 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  465 

tute  for  the  creeds  of  Protestant  Anglicanism  those  of  his 
Cavaher  forefathers.  But  everything  was  forgiven,  if  not 
forgotten,  by  all  Christians  to  whom  his  Evening  and  Morn- 
ing Hymns  had  been  a  benediction,  and  one  of  his  strongest 
opponents  described  him  as  "a  great  and  good  man  whose 
memory  will  last  as  long  as  Christian  devotion  expresses  itself 
in  the  English  tongue."  Born  in  a  secluded  country  parish 
of  Gloucestershire  just  before  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, Keble  was  the  fortunate  child  of  an  old-fashioned  rectory 
where  his  father  represented  scholarly  culture.  Prayer  Book 
piety,  Carolinian  Churchmanship,  and  congenital  Toryism. 
From  the  first  the  son  was  nurtured  in  conceptions  which 
afterwards  breathed  in  his  poetry  and  were  exemplified  in  his 
character.  As  Methodism  sprang  from  Epworth  rectory, 
so  the  Oxford  Movement  sprang  from  the  vicarages  of  Coin 
St,  Aldwins  and  Totnes.  Keble  and  Froude  were  High 
Churchmen  by  ancestral  right ;  the  tenets  they  conveyed  to 
Newman  were  theirs  by  inheritance ;  his  doctrinal  ante- 
cedents differed  in  many  essentials.  But  the  three  men 
found  a  unity  of  place  and  of  ideas  at  Oxford;  she 
refashioned  and  blended  them  and  gave  them  to  the 
Catholic  Revival,  and  with  them.  Miller,  Palmer,  Pusey, 
Hook,  and  Ogilvie.  Like  Froude,  Keble  remained  unshaken 
in  his  allegiance  to  his  Church.  When  others  bent  to  the 
storm,  or  asseverated  from  their  pulpits  that,  although  faint, 
they  were  still  pursuing,  or  silently  stole  away  to  Rome,  he 
gave  full  proof  of  his  staunchness  as  an  Anglican  priest,  and 
this  notwithstanding  that  the  logic  of  his  beliefs  pointed 
directly  to  the  refuge  in  which  his  friends  and  proteges  found 
shelter.  But  though  he  admitted  the  strength  of  Rome's 
canonical  position,  and  objected  to  her  doctrinal  corruptions 
with  a  timid  and  deferential  air,  he  chose  the  domestic 
privacy  which  suited  his  pacific  disposition,  forsook  further 
preferment  in  his  University,  married,  and  stayed  in  his  lot 
to  the  end  of  his  days. 

Testimony  to  his  importance  as  the  actual    founder  of 


466      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

Tractarianism  has  been  given  by  Dean  Church  and  also  by- 
Newman.  "  Long  before  the  Oxford  Movement  was  thought 
of,  or  had  any  definite  shape,  a  number  of  its  characteristic 
principles  and  ideas  had  taken  a  strong  hold  of  the  mind 
of  a  man  of  great  ability  and  great  seriousness  .  .  .  John 
Keble."  ^  "The  true  and  primary  author  of  it,  as  is  usual 
with  great  motive  powers,  was  out  of  sight.  Having  carried 
off  as  a  mere  boy  the  highest  honors  of  the  University,  he  had 
turned  from  the  admiration  which  haunted  his  steps  and 
sought  for  a  better  and  a  holier  satisfaction  in  pastoral  work 
in  the  country.  Need  I  say  that  I  am  speaking  of  John 
Keble."  ^  Pusey  confirmed  these  statements  and  so  did 
Dr.  James  B.  Mozley,  who  was  regarded  by  competent 
judges  as  the  most  stimulating  thinker  the  Church  of 
England  had  produced  since  Butler. 

When  Oriel  was  the  center  of  Oxford's  talent  and  learning 
Keble  was  hailed  as  the  glory  of  the  college,  for  whom  every 
visitor  inquired  and  expected  to  see.  "The  slightest  word  he 
dropped  was  all  the  more  remembered  from  there  being  so 
little  of  it,  and  from  it  seeming  to  come  from  a  different  and 
holier  sphere."  ^  Yet  such  giants  as  Copleston,  Hawkins, 
Davison  and  Whately  gathered  around  the  fire  in  the 
Oriel  Common  Room ;  they  gave  tone  to  the  University, 
and  it  was  impossible  that  Keble,  a  recently  elected 
fellow,  could  be  equal  to  their  skill  in  disputation.  Truth  to 
tell,  he  was  not,  and  Sir  John  T.  Coleridge  hinted  that  he 
sometimes  yearned  for  the  less  exacting  society  of  his  old 
friends  at  Corpus.  His  intellectual  endowments  were  inferior 
to  his  classical  knowledge.  In  scientific  matters  he  was  a 
tyro.  Thomas  Mozley  recites  his  amusing  argument  with 
Buckland,  the  geologist,  which  lasted  all  the  way  from  Oxford 
to  Winchester.  Keble  took  his  stand  on  the  certainty  of  the 
Almighty  having  created  the  fossil  remains  of  former  exist- 
ences in  the  six  days  of  Genesis.'*     He  was  an  elegant  scholar, 

^  "  The  Oxford  Movement "  ;  p.  32.  ^  "  Apologia  "  ;  p.  17. 

'  Thomas  Mozley:  "  Reminiscences  "  ;  Vol.  I,  p.  38.         ^  Ibid.,  p.  179. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  467 

who  could  discourse  with  wisdom  to  congenial  listeners,  but 
nothing  original  was  in  him,  nor  was  he  fitted  for  leadership 
in  large  affairs.  He  rather  served  as  an  embodiment  of 
usages  and  institutions  first  deemed  Laudian  and  then 
Apostolic,  and  as  such  he  was  regarded  by  Froude  and  New- 
man. Disliking  speculation  and  the  competition  of  trained 
minds,  he  embraced  with  childlike  trust  the  teachings  of 
the  Church  he  apostrophized  as  his  mother,  retained  untar- 
nished the  impressions  of  his  youthful  goodness,  and  relin- 
quished the  University  eminence  to  which  his  consecrated 
character  entitled  him,  that  he  might  bury  himself  in  his 
curacy  at  East  Leach  and  Burthorpe.  This  decision,  while 
entirely  in  harmony  with  his  wishes,  was  a  genuine  self- 
effacement.  Yet  by  it  he  gained  what  he  most  desired, 
nearness  to  his  family,  escape  from  the  turmoil  of  a  belliger- 
ent world,  and  a  suitable  environment  for  uninterrupted 
communion  with  God. 

In  1831  he  was  elected  Professor  of  Poetry  at  Oxford  in 
succession  to  Dean  Milman,  and  held  the  chair  for  ten  years. 
His  motives  and  experiences  as  an  author  were  indicated  by 
his  definition  of  poetry  as  the  vent  for  surcharged  feelings  or 
a  full  imagination.  Plis  muse  was  a  gracious  gift  dedicated 
to  the  sanctuary  and  the  inner  life :  serving  faith  and  the 
objects  of  faith  with  chasteness  and  purity  of  speech.  "The 
Christian  Year,"  published  in  1827,  was  the  first  literary 
expression  of  Neo-Anglicanism,  and  the  volume  made  him 
the  central  sun  of  his  then  contracted  but  rapidly  enlarging 
sphere.  Newman  mildly  remonstrated  that  its  doctrines, 
although  lovely,  were  not  sufficiently  thorough,  but  he  cheer- 
fully conceded  that  the  popularity  of  Tractarian  ideas  was 
due  to  Keble's  poetry.  Those  ideas  centered  around  material 
phenomena  as  both  the  types  and  the  instruments  of  things 
unseen,  and  embraced  in  all  its  fullness  whatever  was  received 
by  Catholics  as  well  as  Anglicans  concerning  the  Sacraments, 
the  communion  of  saints,  and  the  mysteries  of  religion. 
Although  the  lyrics  in  which  these  were  expressed  were 


468      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFC 

thoughtful  and  soothing,  their  awkward  meter  and 
tion  and  occasional  obscurity  were  so  marked  tha. 
worth  offered  to  correct  their  English.     Nor  were  the^       etry 
of  the  inevitable  kind :    they  lacked  the  highest  '■,         ^f 
passion  or  pity,  and  their  placidities  were  far  remov 
"the  Dantean  flame  in  which  all  things  are  transma.. 
the  colors  of  a  supernatural  world."     Despite  these  draw- 
backs they  were  favorably  received  not  only  by  the  Chuich 
in  general  but  also  by  the  literary  world.     All  felt  that  Kelde 
had  struck  an  original  note  and  aroused  a  new  music  in  t  le 
hearts  of  multitudes. 

Taking  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  for  his  guide,  he  com- 
posed a  poetical  manual  of  religious  sentiment  which,  though 
sometimes  degenerating  into  sentimentalism,  became  an  un- 
doubted source  of  pious  inspiration.  T  he  winsome  tenderness 
he  displayed  toward  the  ideals  of  High  Anglican  worship  was 
couched  in  moving  and  unaffected  language.  Antique  prej- 
udices and  extreme  opinions  occasionally  protruded,  yet  they 
were  not  so  pronounced  as  to  arouse  sectarian  resentment, 
which  was  lulled  to  slumber  by  the  unction  of  the  writer's 
melodies.  The  well-known  truth  already  mentioned  in  the 
chapters  on  Wesley,  that  sacred  poetry  is  blind  to  hetero- 
doxy, was  seldom  better  illustrated.  His  habit,  however, 
of  mapping  out  the  slightest  allusion  in  the  Gospels  so  as 
to  have  a  well  defined  and  appropriate  mood  of  poetry 
for  as  many  days  as  possible  in  the  calendar  evoked  the 
rebuke  of  some  critics,  who  complained,  not  without  justice, 
that  the  smallest  item  of  historic  incident  or  moral  epithet 
was  forced  into  the  service  of  thin  and  feminine  verse,  which 
was  often  vague  and  formless.  Bagehot's  pungent  comment 
was  that  it  translated  Wordsworth  for  women.  The  poems 
contributed  to  the  "Lyra  Apostolica"  and  the  "Lyra  Inno- 
centium,"  which  followed  those  of  "The  Christian  Year," 
added  nothing  to  Keble's  fame.  This  was  permanently 
secured  by  his  best  lyrics,  which  will  long  be  associated  with 
those  of  Bishop  Ken   for  their  fragrant  devotion   and   in- 


aaC  JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  469 

;  :  n*)  |)onthe  daily  consecration  of  Christian  fellowship. 
^i'  '  -tpiritual  suggestiveness,  replete  with  sweetness  and 
delft"^  1  '::;  happy  in  their  references  to  the  nobler  aspects 
<**  qtire,  and  steeped  in  the  sacramental  usages  of  the 
and  in  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Bible,  they  have 
^iitb/ied,  adorned,  and  hallowed  the  praises  of  the  Church. 
Resentful  of  the  preponderant  intellectualism  of  the  day, 
with  its  attendant  egotism  and  sterility  in  motive  power; 
gj5^en  to  allegorical  and  fanciful  interpretation;  subservi- 
ei^t  to  patristic  illustrations  of  ritual  and  worship ;  as  a  rule 
meek  as  a  lamb,  but  liable  to  outbreaks  of  temper  when  his  pet 
theories  were  assailed^  and  separated  from  the  social  exist- 
ence of  the  majority  of  his  fellow  countrymen ;  such  was 
John  Keble,  the  saint  and  singer,  who  lived  to  see  his  princi- 
ples promulgated  in  countless  parishes  and  his  ministrations 
extended  throughout  England  and  America.  His  spiritual 
elevation,  his  laudable  consecration  of  visible  means,  his 
passion  for  the  holiness  of  Christian  adoration  helped  to 
remove  from  the  Church  the  stagnation  and  dearth  he 
deplored.  He  passed  his  days  surrounded  by  the  propi- 
tious circumstances  of  an  orderly  and  somewhat  aristo- 
cratic society,  in  which  he  dwelt  at  peace,  yet  resentful 
toward  many  aspects  of  the  actual  life  of  his  time.  The  lov- 
ing eulogies  lavished  on  him  were  not  always  wise  or  dis- 
criminating, for  the  Tractarians  sometimes  used  very  exalted 
terms  about  one  another,  and  few  of  them  could  be  trusted  to 
sit  in  judgment  on  their  patron  saint.  Notwithstanding 
these  misapprehensions,  the  real  man  was  singularly  lofty 
and  unassuming ;  in  most  respects  worthy  not  only  of  esteem 
but  of  affectionate  reverence.  Keble  College,  Oxford, 
erected  after  his  death,  was  raised,  said  Canon  Liddon, 
"to  the  memory  of  a  quiet  country  clergyman,  with  a  very 
moderate  income,  who  sedulously  avoided  public  distinc- 
tions, and  held  tenaciously  to  an  unpopular  school  all  his 
life.  .  .  .  The  more  men  really  know  of  him,  who,  being 
dead,  has,  in  virtue  of  the  rich  gifts  and  graces  with  which 


470      THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

God  has  endowed  him,  summoned  this  college  into  being, 
the  less  wUl  they  marvel  at  such  a  tribute  to  his  profound  and 
enduring  influence."  ^  In  these  words  we  feel  the  orientation 
of  Keble's  spirit ;  by  them  we  are  made  aware  of  his  saint- 
liness  and  of  his  nobler  aspirations,  which 

"...  come  transfigured  back, 
Secure  from  change  in  their  high-hearted  ways, 
Beautiful  evermore,  and  with  the  rays 
Of  Morn  on  their  white  shields  of  Expectation." 

Ill 

One  of  the  first  fruits  of  Newman's  friendship  with  Froude 
and  Keble  was  a  marked  increase  in  the  sense  of  his  personal 
responsibility  for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  pupils  committed 
to  his  care.  Esteeming  his  college  duties  a  pastoral  privilege, 
he  refused  to  merge  the  cleric  in  the  scholar.  A  lofty  pro- 
phetic strain  began  to  pervade  his  utterances.  The  law  of  the 
Church,  which  he  construed  yet  more  and  more  according 
to  the  standards  of  Catholic  Anglicanism,  prevailed  in  his 
conduct  and  in  that  of  those  whom  he  influenced.  Writing 
to  his  mother  he  informed  her  that  his  engagements  pre- 
empted his  time  and  energy,  making  him  an  exile  from  those 
he  so  much  loved  .^  Everything  else  was  eclipsed  by  his 
devotion  to  the  immediate  service  of  God,  which  expelled  all 
lesser  affairs  as  a  strong  plant  in  a  hedgerow  drives  out  or 
sterilizes  the  rest.  Froude,  who  had  been  elected  to  an  Oriel 
fellowship  and  tutorship  in  1826,  entered  enthusiastically 
into  the  propagandisms  which  were  the  daily  bread  of  both 
men,  and  when  he  deemed  it  desirable  did  not  hesitate  to 
urge  his  companion  to  still  greater  lengths.  In  relation  to  his 
age,  Newman  may  be  regarded  as  a  pioneer  of  the  High 
Anglican  movement  then  gathering  its  first  impetus.  But 
his  was  not  a  happy,  full-blooded  spirit,  and  in  his  struggle 

1  "Clerical  Life  and  Work"  ;   pp.  353-354. 

*  "Letters  aiyi  Correspondence"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  115. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  471 

against  a  vigorous  opposition,  he  abandoned  himself  to  that 
behttUng  view  of  human  nature  which  is  frequently  an 
evidence  of  religious  fatigue  rather  than  of  religious  dis- 
cernment. Other  and  very  different  personalities  of  the 
nineteenth  century  shared  his  despair  over  a  general 
condition  which  offered  large  opportunity  for  discontent  as 
well  as  renunciation .  Though  some  new  truths  which  sounded 
dolefully  to  him  were  grateful  to  them,  all  alike  were  dis- 
tressed by  the  moral  and  spiritual  enigmas  their  times  pre- 
sented. George  Eliot,  who  somewhat  resembled  and  greatly 
admired  Newman,  distilled  through  fiction  a  stoical  resigna- 
tion and  a  calm  resolve  to  endure  the  worst.  Arthur  Hugh 
Clough  gave  up  the  whole  problem,  yet  still  clung  to  it  in 
blank  bewilderment.  Tennyson  eventually  succeeded  in 
reaching  a  stage  of  faith  where,  on  the  whole,  the  odds  were  in 
favor  of  heaven.  Browning's  optimism,  so  often  lauded,  was 
sometimes  too  insistent  to  be  convincing.  Newman,  like 
Matthew  Arnold,  at  this  moment  was  dejectedly 

"Wandering  between  two  worlds, 
One  dead,  the  other  powerless  to  be  born."  ^ 

He  complained  of  the  present  state  of  things,  which  his  change 
of  opinion  obliged  him  to  represent  in  its  worst  form,  and 
retreated  to  an  obscure  past,  over  which  he  threw  the  legend- 
ary halo  of  an  exceeding  sanctity.  Harassed  by  modernity, 
and  its  supposed  preference  for  material  aggrandizement, 
he  resorted  to  antiquity  and  its  supposed  preference  for 
qualitative  perfection.  The  future,  being  supreme,  became 
as  nothing;  the  past  became  ever;yi:hing.  In  journey- 
ing toward  this  goal,  he  forsook  to  a  large  degree  the 
wider  areas  of  human  life  and  forfeited  that  wholeness  of 
contemplation  which  becomes  the  historian  and  the  thinker. 
The  large  majority  of  men  who  must  be  content  to  dwell  far 
below  the  summits  of  achievement,  but  who  instinctively 
renew  their  youth  and  perform  the  cyclopean  tasks  of  the 

*  John  F.  Genung :   "Stevenson's  Attitude  to  Life"  ;   p.  6. 


472      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

race,  were  of  little  moment  compared  with  the  few  outstand- 
ing figures  to  whom  he  attached  the  entire  meaning  of  exist- 
ence. Beneath  his  failure  to  accommodate  himself  to  his 
surroundings  operated  a  vivid  retentive  mind,  content  to 
dwell  in  the  primitive  organizations  of  Christianity,  finding 
in  their  persecutions  and  conquests  the  example  and  the 
stimulus  for  a  present  readjustment.  The  mighty  drama 
of  God's  ceaseless  working  was  thus  woefully  circum- 
scribed, and  many  of  the  forces  which  have  helped  to 
weave  the  fabric  of  Christian  civilization  were  treated  as 
negligible  quantities. 

He  voiced  his  dissatisfaction  with  the  barren  levity  and  the 
thirst  for  false  and  worthless  things  and  the  blindness  to  all 
majestic  or  tragical  tendencies  in  the  following  sentiments: 
"We  can  scarce  open  any  of  the  lighter  or  popular  publica- 
tions of  the  day  without  falling  upon  some  panegyric  on  our- 
selves, on  the  illumination  and  humanity  of  the  age,  or  upon 
some  disparaging  remarks  on  the  wisdom  and  virtue  of 
former  times.  Now  it  is  a  most  salutary  thing  under 
this  temptation  to  self-conceit,  to  be  reminded,  that  in 
all  the  highest  qualifications  of  human  excellence,  we 
have  been  far  outdone  by  men  who  lived  centuries 
ago ;  that  a  standard  of  truth  and  holiness  was  then  set 
up,  which  we  are  not  likely  to  reach;  and  that,  as  for 
thinking  to  become  wiser  or  better,  or  more  acceptable  to 
God  than  they  were,  it  is  a  mere  dream."  ^  He  ear- 
nestly wished  that  St.  Paul  or  St.  John  could  rise  from  the 
dead  to  show  this  untoward  generation  that  its  boasted 
knowledge  was  but  a  shadow  of  power,  and  cause  the  minute 
philosophers  who  dared  to  scrutinize  the  traditions  of  the 
faith  to  shrink  into  nothingness.  "  Are  we  not  come  to  this," 
he  asked,  "  is  it  not  our  shame  as  a  nation,  that,  if  not  the 
Apostles  themselves,  at  least  the  Ecclesiastical  System  they 
devised,  and  the  Order  they  founded,  are  viewed  with  cold- 
ness and  disrespect?     How  few  there  are  who  look  with 

•  "  Parochial  and  Plain  Sermons  "  ;  Vol.  II,  Sermon  XXXII. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  473 

reverent  interest  upon  the  Bishops  of  the  Church  as  the 
Successors  of  the  Apostles;  honoring  them,  if  they  honor, 
merely  because  they  like  them  as  individuals,  and  not  from 
any  thought  of  the  peculiar  sacredness  of  their  oflBce."  ^ 
The  dexterity  of  these  statements  is  apparent,  and  much 
they  contained  enlists  approval.  But  his  identification  of 
the  Apostles,  who  were  the  immortal  servants  of  mankind 
and  the  personal  sources  of  an  unparalleled  reconstruction  of 
religion,  with  his  own  ecclesiastical  order  was  a  gratuitous 
assumption  which  deft  phrasing  could  not  conceal.  His 
adoration  of  former  times  and  depreciation  of  the  present 
and  the  future  led  him  to  ignore  one  half  of  history.  The 
services  of  justice  and  freedom,  knowledge  and  philanthropy 
in  nineteenth  century  England  were  left  outside  his  con- 
sideration. He  felt  that  she  had  few  affinities  with 
Apostolic  life  and  thought,  but  many  with  Greek  and  Roman 
paganism.  That  she  also  had,  as  have  all  nations,  organs 
and  proclivities  for  living  the  life  of  the  spirit  apart  from 
sacerdotal  governance,  he  would  not  concede.  The  theory 
of  universal  depravity  he  had  retained  from  Calvinism  over- 
looked some  better  elements  which  must  be  present  in  men's 
souls  if  they  are  to  recognize,  understand,  and  obey  the  over- 
tures of  divine  love.  And  in  addition,  Newman  was  always 
liable  to  an  emotional  logic  which  blurred  important  facts 
and  lamed  his  conclusions. 

A  serious  illness  which  befell  him  about  this  time  left  him 
with  a  quickened  realization  of  his  religious  needs.  Never 
robust  in  body,  always  an  endless  toiler,  he  spent  himself 
until  what  health  he  had  was  seriously  impaired.  His 
eyesight  failed,  his  voice  grew  faint,  his  form  was  worn  to 
emaciation.  At  last  he  collapsed,  but  despite  everything,  he 
still  felt  the  impulse  of  his  purposes,  and  the  contrition  of  a 
genuine  seeker  after  God,  who  confessed  to  Him  what  he 
would  never  confess  to  man,  and  having  done  so,  renewed  his 
vows  and  resumed  his  quest.     Then  came  the  death  of  his 

1  "Parochial  and  Plain  Sermons"  ;   Vol.  II,  Sermon  XXXII. 


474      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OP   OXFORD 

much  loved  sister  Mary,  bringing  with  it  the  moral  elevation 
of  a  lasting  sorrow,  and  ingeminating  those  indefinite, 
vague,  and  withal  subtle  feelings  which  made  the  soul 
within  him  forlorn  and  well-nigh  comfortless.  Nor  did  he 
find  relief  in  the  rural  haunts  of  the  west  country,  where  he 
spent  a  brief  holiday  while  convalescing.  Tragic  occurrences 
were  associated  with  pastoral  sights  and  scenes;  they  re- 
minded him  of  the  dear  one  who  had  gone  :  "Mary,"  he  said, 
"seems  embodied  in  every  tree  and  every  hill.  What  a  veil 
and  curtain  this  world  of  sense  is !  beautiful,  but  still  a 
veil."  ' 

His  campaign  for  the  high  doctrines  of  the  Church  now 
became  more  direct,  shaped  as  it  was  by  these  causes  that 
separated  him  from  other  contentions  and  interests  not 
germane  to  the  main  concern.  Alarmed  by  the  negativism 
of  the  rationalists  and  by  the  destructive  tendency  of 
philosophers  who  considered  intellect  and  enlightened  virtue 
all  their  own,  he  passed  out  of  the  shadow  of  liberalism 
which  had  hitherto  darkened  his  orbit  into  a  resentful  mood 
which  confused  constructive  and  sympathetic  teaching  with 
the  errors  of  infidelity  and  looked  upon  all  theories  an- 
tagonistic to  his  own  as  one  chaotic  mass.  Though  uncon- 
scious of  it,  he  and  his  allies  were  themselves  in  bondage  to 
the  deistic  notion  of  an  infinite  separation  between  the  Cre- 
ator and  creation.  Schleiermacher's  doctrine  of  Divine 
Immanence,  and  also  that  developed  by  Coleridge,  seemed 
to  High  Churchmen  a  presumptuous  and  pantheistic  denial 
of  the  personality  of  God  but  one  remove  from  atheism. 
The  open-mindedness  of  the  German  theologian  toward  the 
Holy  Scriptures  was  equally  repugnant.  Tractarians  claimed 
that  they  could  understand  a  Bible  miraculously  indited  and 
preserved  intact  throughout  its  wonderful  history ;  they 
could  not  understand  that  the  Holy  Spirit  directed  the  sacred 
authors  without  emptying  them  of  their  individuality.  Any 
attack  upon  the  accepted  position  that  the  Bible  was  through- 
•  "Letters  and  Correspondence"  ;  Vol.  I,  p.  161. 


JOHN   HENRY    NEWMAN  475 

out  an  unimpeachable  revelation  of  the  will  of  God  they 
vigorously  resented.  The  idea  that  its  contents  were  the 
more  convincing  because  the  writers  were  not  reduced  to  the 
level  of  automata,  but  freely  exercised  their  several  gifts 
and  graces,  was  obnoxious  to  them.  In  a  word,  the  differ- 
ence between  their  viewpoint  and  that  of  the  new  scholar- 
ship was  the  difference  between  hypnosis  and  inspiration. 

Again,  revivals  of  religion  such  as  the  one  which  swept 
through  Britain  and  her  colonies  in  the  preceding  century 
were  denounced  by  Anglo-Catholics  as  detrimental  to  the 
life  and  action  of  the  Church :  emotional  whirlwinds,  raising 
the  dust  of  fanaticism,  heresy,  and  schism.  Periodical  re- 
generations had  a  Scriptural  and  historic  sanction  quite  as 
traceable  as  that  of  apostolic  succession,  and  one  which  was 
by  no  means  as  open  to  valid  objections.  The  power  to  move 
men  and  women  to  spiritual  decision  has  always  been  a  hall- 
mark of  New  Testament  authority  and  benediction.  Never- 
theless clerics  of  the  type  of  Newsman,  Keble,  Froude,  and 
Pusey,  together  with  many  educated  and  ignorant  laymen  in 
the  Church  of  England,  were  thoroughly  set  against  these 
manifestations  and  all  that  they  portended.  The  Tractarians 
enunciated  the  principle  that  formal  law  obtains  in  the 
spiritual  as  in  the  physical  realm.  Irregular  and  spasmodic 
outbreaks  of  religious  fervor  contradicted  their  main  premise 
that  the  divine  life  in  man  was  part  of  an  external  process, 
and  as  such,  acted  independently  of  his  transient  states  of 
mind.  They  believed  that  the  sources  of  spiritual  renewal 
and  sustenance  were  as  stable  and  irrevocable  as  the  opera- 
tions of  nature,  and,  like  these,  were  universal,  not  provincial ; 
continuous,  not  intermittent ;  primarily  obtained  by  submis- 
sion and  obedience  to  ostensible  authority,  rather  than 
through  inward  experience.  This  sacerdotal  rule  suited  the 
complexion  of  minds  content  to  rest  on  its  assumptions,  and 
not  repelled  by  its  mechanical  and  materialized  processes. 
But  it  destroyed  the  New  Testament  democracy  of  believers 
by  treating  the  dispensation  of  Divine  grace  as  a  hierarchi- 


476      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

cal  monopoly,  and  by  denying  the  right  of  approach  to  God 
unless  mediated  through  an  ordained  priesthood.  Loyalty 
to  concrete  objectives  of  faith,  which  asserted  unbroken 
relations  with  the  very  presence  and  word  of  Jesus  Christ 
while  He  actually  walked  on  the  earth,  was  substituted  for 
the  wrestlings  and  pleadings  of  guilty  sinners  who,  like  Jacob 
at  the  brook  Jabbok,  invoked  for  themselves  the  Everlast- 
ing Mercy.  Yet,  as  in  his  case,  the  discipline  of  these  more 
heroical  ventures  obtained  for  men  their  divinest  gifts 
and  produced  the  grand  personalities  of  the  Church.  They 
were  not  as  general  in  their  scope  as  was  the  easier  method 
which  depended  upon  the  guarantees  of  a  visible  organiza- 
tion. But  though  they  had  no  such  width  of  application, 
their  certitudes  were  enshrined  in  the  human  soul,  their  in- 
securities were  on  the  surface. 

At  this  moment  Romanticism  appeared,  creating  a  senti- 
mental appreciation  for  Catholic  peculiarities,  and  flinging 
a  delusive  glamour  over  the  so-called  ages  of  faith.  Re- 
fined spirits  of  an  aesthetic  turn,  whether  in  Germany,  France, 
or  England,  were  enraptured  with  the  sensuous  beauty  and 
seemliness  of  medievalism.  Loving  every  era  better  than 
their  own,  they  turned  from  the  rush  of  surrounding  forces 
which  they  dreaded  to  bewitching  presentations  of  the 
chivalry  they  adored.  Their  literature  and  art  idealized  the 
triumphs,  the  tragedies,  the  gay  loves,  the  deadly  hates 
of  the  period,  until  it  began  to  assume  the  appearance 
of  a  golden  age,  wherein  men  wrought  greatly  because 
they  greatly  obeyed  and  believed.  Its  strange  veneering 
of  both  tenderness  and  ferocity  by  religious  rites  and 
observances  gave  scope  to  those  whose  actual  knowledge 
of  the  events  they  treated  was  too  often  a  thing  of  shreds 
and  patches  but  whose  fancies  were  no  longer  fettered. 
There  was  also  a  revulsion  against  the  debased  taste 
in  architecture  that  had  bestudded  the  land  with  squat 
ugly  meeting-houses  and  nondescript  Georgian  churches,  the 
very  hideousness  of  which  was  supposed  to  be  a  protection 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  477 

against  the  lure  of  Rome's  gorgeous  fanes  and  ritualistic 
decorations.  The  paramount  influence  of  Sir  Walter  Scott 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  "he  turned  men's  thoughts  in  the 
direction  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  general  need  of  something 
more  attractive  than  what  had  offered  itself  elsewhere  may  be 
considered  to  have  led  to  his  popularity  ;  and  by  means  of  his 
popularity  he  reacted  on  his  readers,  stimulating  their 
mental  thirst,  feeding  their  hopes,  setting  before  them  visions, 
which,  when  once  seen,  are  not  easily  forgotten,  and  silently 
indoctrinating  them  with  nobler  ideas,  which  might  after- 
wards be  appealed  to  as  first  principles."  ^  This  rallying  to 
fiction  as  the  storehouse  of  first  principles  was  the  infirmity 
of  some  Romanticists,  who,  had  they  known  more,  would 
have  imagined  less.  Impervious  to  the  verdicts  of  knowledge 
and  reason,  they  attempted  to  turn  the  tide  and  again  im- 
pose upon  the  church  and  nation  those  forms  of  supremacy 
that  had  been  thrown  off  by  the  resurgent  energies  of  life 
itself.  The  degradation,  the  cruelty,  the  oppression  which 
characterized  medievalism  were  ignored,  while  its  stately 
symbolism  and  sacramental  authority  were  lauded  and  imi- 
tated by  clerics,  artists,  poets,  essayists,  and  novelists  who 
viewed  them  through  the  media  of  pontifical  and  princely 
display,  knights  in  shining  armor,  Gothic  minsters,  and 
Dante's  poetry.  They  had  much  to  say  which  gave  veri- 
similitude to  their  pleas  for  the  soul  of  honor  and  of  virtue  in 
past  days  of  mingled  good  and  evil.  But  what  they  said 
was  not  always  substantiated  by  the  facts  which  divide  and 
compound  man's  dual  nature.  Prophets  who  prophesied 
falsely,  they  eluded  disagreeable  realities;  fomented  the 
dissensions  which  have  weakened  the  structure  of  English- 
speaking  society  and  aggravated  the  religious  divisions  they 
proposed  to  obliterate.  Their  god  was  resplendent  to  the 
uninstructed  eye,  but  its  feet  were  of  clay.  Scott  was  con- 
scious of  this  misdirection,  and,  contrary  to  his  predilections, 
gave  the  laurel  to  the  Covenanter  rather  than  to  his  perse- 

»  "Apologia"  ;  pp.  96-97. 


478      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

cutors.  Thus  while  the  work  of  the  Romanticists  was  in  many 
instances  injurious  to  reHgion,  it  was  conducive  to  a  renais- 
sance of  Catholicism.  Professor  McGiffert  properly  ob- 
serves that  "  the  Oxford  Movement  gave  delayed  but  some- 
what distorted  expression  to  certain  elements  of  the  romantic 
spirit."  ^ 

Newman,  who  felt  a  growing  attachment  to  Christian 
antiquity,  contrasted  its  unity,  continuity,  and  effectiveness 
with  the  hazardous  experiments  of  intellectualism  then  being 
inflicted  upon  the  faith.  To  offset  these  he  returned  to  the 
precedents  of  third  and  fourth  century  churchmanship,  ad- 
vocating them  without  sufficient  allowance  for  the  organic 
changes  which  had  since  been  evolved.  It  was  not  alto- 
gether native  to  his  habit  to  reason  in  this  fashion  ;  for  he  was 
instinctively  distrustful,  and  showed  at  intervals  that  his  be- 
lief in  the  heroic  epochs  of  Catholicism  was  not  only  deter- 
minative of  his  new  creed,  but  still  more  a  refuge  from  the 
tempestuous  doubts  and  questionings  to  which  his  soul  was 
susceptible.  He  had  rebelled  against  those  who,  as  he 
conceived,  were  endeavoring  to  undermine  the  principle  of 
authority  to  which  he  rendered  special  reverence.  If  the 
Church  was  not  the  guardian  of  ethics  and  religion,  the  quali- 
fied censor  of  morals,  the  natural  champion  of  faith,  the 
mentor  of  mankind  in  spiritual  matters,  what  could  be  said 
for  organized  Christianity  ?  Separated  from  his  former  com- 
panions and  from  much  of  the  actual  life  of  his  fellow  men ; 
entranced,  as  he  was,  by  the  ideal  of  a  living,  growing  Ecclesia 
either  opposing  or  controlling  the  world,  Newman  knew  not 
for  the  moment  where  his  true  strength  lay.  Beset  by  such 
trying  circumstances,  his  subjective  faith  broke  down  beneath 
the  weight  of  externalism.  That  assurance  which  is  not 
an  energy  of  intellect,  or  heart,  or  imagination,  but  rather 
the  spontaneous  and  irresistible  vitality  which  uses  these 
faculties,  was  not  his  at  the  crisis.  At  the  beginning  of  his 
ministry,  with  the  doctrines  of  Evangelicalism  retreating  into 

*  "The  Rise  of  Modern  Religious  Ideas"  ;   p.  194. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  479 

those  subconscious  realms  from  which  they  were  never  en- 
tirely eliminated,  he  whose  mission  it  was  to  proclaim  salva- 
tion to  others  was  no  longer  sure  of  it  himself.  In  his 
distress  he  renewed  his  youthful  fondness  for  the  Fathers 
whom  Whately  had  flippantly  termed  "certain  old  divines," 
and  found  in  them  the  remaining  source  of  his  reconstructed 
theology.  Having  little  or  no  confidence  in  a  progressive 
development  that  was  not  controlled  by  the  Church,  and 
an  ever-present  fear  of  scientific  investigations  as  entailing 
moral  anarchy,  he  must  needs  flee  with  unspeakable  relief 
to  the  ancient  masters  who  became  his  Strong  Rock  and 
House  of  Defense.  Beginning  with  St.  Ignatius  and  St. 
Justin,  he  read  them  in  their  chronological  order  until  he 
arrived  at  the  broad  philosophy  of  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria 
and  Origen.  Their  homilies  and  meditations  carried  him 
back  from  present  evils  to  their  own  times,  and  in  his  re- 
cession he  conceived  a  still  greater  detestation  for  modern 
methods  which  created  more  diflBculties  than  they  settled. 
The  Fathers'  discourses  "  came  like  music  to  my  ear,"  he 
declared,  "  as  if  the  response  to  ideas  which  I  had  cherished 
so  long.  They  were  based  on  the  mystical  or  sacramental 
principle,  and  spoke  of  the  various  Economies  or  Dispensa- 
tions of  the  Eternal."  His  search  for  the  heart  of  Religion 
ended  in  the  dreams  of  his  childhood,  now  realized  in 
these  Elder  Brethren  of  the  household  of  God  whose  writ- 
ings exhibited  an  ideal  of  Christian  regnancy  in  im- 
pressive contrast  with  the  fears  and  doubts  of  Oxford's 
churchmanship.  In  them  was  found  the  antidote  to  the 
baneful  practice  of  resting  religion  on  an  intellectualism  that 
was  everything  in  turn  and  nothing  long,  for  the  supernatural 
order  had  revealed  itself  more  freely  and  convincingly  in 
them  than  in  their  derelict  successors.  He  was  enthralled  by 
such  saints  as  Irenseus  and  Cyprian,  supremely  typical  of  the 
Christianity  which  molded  society  and  subdued  the  hearts 
of  men,  and  to  their  guidance  he  unreservedly  submitted  his 
judgment.     Hereafter  precedent  and  tradition  dictated  his 


480      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

arguments;  and,  individualized  though  he  was,  the  use  of 
independence  became  a  temptation  to  be  withstood. 

This  fragmentary  story  of  his  momentous  change  may  be 
regarded  as  an  illustration  of  the  saying  that  the  most  singu- 
lar lapses  are  those  of  gifted  men.  With  all  his  brilliance  and 
insight,  Newman  had  accomplished  nothing  more  than  the 
kindling  of  his  churchly  zeal  to  its  utmost.  The  real  battle 
was  not  yet  in  sight ;  many  imperfectly  known  antagonisms, 
including  the  philosophical  and  moral  conceptions  of  his  own 
day,  had  yet  to  be  faced,  nor  could  he  escape  the  obligations 
arising  out  of  that  fact.  Every  system  or  creed,  however 
ancient  and  well  tried,  must  be  prepared  to  reckon  with  new 
conditions  of  constantly  evolving  life.  Meanwhile,  despite 
heresy,  lukewarmness,  and  failure,  the  Church  of  his  baptism 
was  still  for  him  the  living  representative  of  the  Apostles; 
she  had  not  lost  for  a  moment  her  vital  nexus ;  she  was  still 
capable  of  recovery,  restitution,  and  compliance  with  the 
divine  commandment.  Her  spirit  freed,  her  confidence  re- 
gained, the  future  opened  before  her  with  an  illimitable 
prospect. 

Thus  believing,  he  pushed  the  issue  to  its  limits,  adding  to 
his  conceptions  of  clerical  sanctity  and  prerogative,  and 
defending  them  against  the  learned  who  derided  him.  Dis- 
cerning the  perils  that  menaced  faith,  he  contended  that 
scholarly  coteries  with  strong  inclinations  toward  the  rejec- 
tion of  pious  heritages  were  no  schools  for  saints.  Their 
detrimental  measures  must  be  overthrown  by  the  doctrines 
of  past  ages,  providentially  preserved,  and  communicated 
through  chosen  men,  who,  while  not  acceptable  to  profane 
wisdom,  had  faithfully  guarded  the  deposit  committed  to 
them.  In  a  letter  to  his  mother,  under  date  of  March  13, 
1829,  he  set  forth  the  situation  as  it  appealed  to  him. 
"  We  live  in  a  novel  era  —  one  in  which  there  is  an  advance 
towards  universal  education.  Men  have  hitherto  depended 
especially  on  the  clergy  for  religious  truth ;  now  each  man 
attempts  to  judge  for  himself.     Now,  without  meaning  of 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  481 

course  that  Christianity  is  in  itself  opposed  to  free  inquiry, 
still  I  think  it  is  in  fact  at  the  present  time  opposed  to 
the  particular  form  which  that  liberty  of  thought  has  now 
assumed.  Christianity  is  of  faith,  modesty,  lowliness,  sub- 
ordination ;  but  the  spirit  at  work  against  it  is  one  of  latitu- 
dinarianism,  indifferentism,  and  schism,  a  spirit  which  tends 
to  overthrow  doctrine,  as  if  the  fruit  of  bigotry  and  discipline 
—  as  if  the  instrument  of  priestcraft.  All  parties  seem  to 
acknowledge  that  the  stream  of  opinion  is  setting  against 
the  Church.  .  .  .  And  now  I  come  to  another  phenomenon  : 
the  talent  of  the  day  is  against  the  Church.  The  Church 
party  (visibly  at  least  .  .  .  )  is  poor  in  mental  endowments. 
It  has  not  activity,  shrewdness,  dexterity,  eloquence,  practi- 
cal power."  ^ 

From  the  Fathers,  Newman  also  derived  a  speculative 
angelology  which  described  the  unseen  universe  as  in- 
habited by  hosts  of  intermediate  beings  who  were  spiritual 
agents  between  God  and  creation,  and  determined  to  some 
extent  the  character  of  various  peoples.  Of  these  inter- 
mediaries some  were  good,  directed  by  a  superior  wisdom, 
and  content  to  serve  the  Supreme  Will  in  the  economy  of 
material  w  orlds ;  others  were  neither  angelic  nor  reprobate, 
partially  fallen,  capricious,  wayward;  noble  or  crafty, 
benevolent  or  malicious,  as  their  qualities  were  evoked  by 
differing  environments;  the  remainder,  being  farthest 
removed  from  divine  contact,  were  lowest  in  the  scale;  in 
essence  evil,  and  an  active  hindrance  to  the  higher  progress 
of  mankind.  The  Angels  proper  were  the  real  causes  of 
motion,  light,  and  life  and  of  what  are  called  the  laws  of 
nature.  Those  who  were  neither  banned  nor  blessed  gave 
a  sort  of  intelligence  to  nations  and  classes  of  men.  The 
case  of  England  was  cited  as  an  example  of  their  operations. 
"It  seems  to  me,"  he  commented,  "that  John  Bull  is  a  spirit 
neither  of  heaven  nor  hell."  The  third  order  represented  the 
principle  of  evil ;  and  it  was  of  infinite  moment  to  man  that 

1  "Letters  and  Correspondence";   Vol.  I,  pp.  178-180. 
2i 


482      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

he  should  know  how  to  avoid  their  seductive  overtures 
and  thus  keep  his  reHgious  nature  unclogged  and  unsulhed.^ 
It  is  obvious  that  this  attenuated  hypothesis  had  no  neces- 
sary connection  with  the  faith ;  it  was  theosophical  rather 
than  Christian  in  its  development,  and  renewed  some  features 
of  the  heresy  which  St.  Paul  rebuked  and  corrected  in  his 
Colossian  Epistle.  Indeed,  Newman's  cosmogony  was  essen- 
tially Gnostic,  and  echoed  the  teaching  of  Cerinthus,  who 
is  best  entitled  to  be  considered  as  the  link  between  the 
Judaizing  and  Gnostic  sects.^ 

His  earlier  intention  to  become  a  missionary  had  now 
vanished ;  he  felt  that  his  vocation  was  at  Oriel,  and  this 
seemed  likely  enough  until  Dr.  Edward  Hawkins  was  elected 
Provost  of  the  college.  Hawkins,  who  united  a  limited  power 
of  decisive  thinking  with  great  talent  for  action,  held  the 
provostship  within  four  years  of  half  a  century,  from  1828 
to  1874.  He  magnified  his  office  and  introduced  many  re- 
forms, usually  opposing,  however,  such  as  did  not  originate 
with  himself.  A  man  of  practical  intelligence,  he  showed  his 
discrimination  in  the  oft-quoted  prediction  that  if  Thomas 
Arnold  were  elected  to  be  Master  of  Rugby  he  would  change  the 
face  of  education  all  through  the  public  schools  of  England.^ 
But  the  University  in  which  the  distinguished  Provost  ad- 
ministered was  sorely  vexed  about  many  things,  and  its 
turmoils  helped  to  turn  his  activity  into  "  a  channel  of  obsti- 
nate and  prolonged  resistance  and  protest,  most  conscientious 
but  most  uncompromising,  against  two  great  successive 
movements,  both  of  which  he  condemned  and  recoiled  from  as 
revolutionary  —  the  Tractarian  first  and  the  Liberal  Move- 
ment in  Oxford."  ^  The  last  trace  of  Newman's  connection 
with  the  Noetics  was  seen  in  his  support  of  Hawkins  for 
Provost,  whom  they  had  adopted  as  their  candidate  in  pref- 

»  "Apologia"  ;   pp.  28-29. 

^  Lightfoot:  "Commentary  on  St.  Paul's  Epistles  to  the  Colossiana  and 
Philemon";   pp.  71-111. 

'  Dean  Stanley :    "Life  of  Thomas  Arnold"  ;    Vol.  I,  p.  51. 
<  Dean  Church:   "Occasional  Papers"  ;   Vol.  II,  pp.  344-347. 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  483 

erence  to  Keble.  When  Froude  criticized  the  choice, 
Newman  replied  that  had  they  been  electing  an  angel 
he  would  have  voted  for  Keble ;  but  it  was  only  a  Pro- 
vost. He  did  not  believe  that  Keble  could  manage  men, 
whereas,  about  Hawkins  he  had  no  doubt,  and  the  interests 
of  Oriel  demanded  a  strong  and  capable  head.  A  little 
later  he  would  probably  have  reversed  his  judgment  and 
selected  a  candidate  of  High  Church  principles.  As  it  was, 
Keble  retired  to  Hursley,  and  Hawkins  proved  to  be  far  more 
aggressive  than  some  desired.  The  pulpit  of  St,  Mary's, 
rendered  vacant  by  Hawkins'  transfer  to  Oriel,  now  fell  to 
Newman,  who  made  it  his  throne  of  power  for  some  years 
prior  to  the  "Tracts  for  the  Times."  A  considerable  amount 
of  ingenuity  has  been  expended  on  what  might  have  been  had 
events  shaped  themselves  differently.  Keble  as  Provost 
might  have  remained  unmarried,  and  would  certainly  have 
been  in  closer  contact  with  Newman,  in  which  case  Dr.  E.  A. 
Abbott  surmises  that  their  joint  composition  of  the  "Apolo- 
gia" was  within  the  bounds  of  possibility.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  Keble  never  dreamed  of  seeking  relief  in  the  Roman 
communion,  and  Newman's  secession  grieved  him  beyond 
measure.  Again,  if  Hawkins  had  stayed  at  St.  Mary's,  he' 
would  have  deprived  Newman  of  his  matchless  opportunity 
to  set  forth,  as  he  alone  could,  the  Via  Media  so  nobly  em- 
bodied by  Richard  William  Church,  as  a  desirable  compro- 
mise between  the  Papacy  and  Puritanism.  This  Newman 
did,  and  did  marvelously  well,  until  the  Anglican  Church 
ceased  to  be  any  longer  the  prophetess  of  God  for  him. 
However,  these  conjectures  must  not  divert  us  from  what 
actually  happened.  Newman's  indignation  was  aroused 
by  the  want  of  system,  waste  of  effort,  and  paucity  of  results 
in  the  responsible  affairs  of  the  University.  Above  all  else, 
he  objected  to  the  religious  formalism  and  lassitude  which 
left  the  undergraduates  over-shepherded  yet  shepherdless. 
They  were  compelled  to  subscribe  to  the  Thirty-nine  Articles 
as  a  preliminary  to  admission  to  the  University,  and  to  attend 


484      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

the  Holy  Communion,  whatever  their  state  of  Hfe  and  con- 
duct. After  these  requirements  had  been  observed,  they 
were  free  to  follow  their  own  inclinations,  with  results  that 
might  have  been  expected.  Drunkenness  and  vice  were 
prevalent ;  idleness  and  distaste  for  scholarly  pursuits  ended 
in  repeated  failures  and  humiliations.  Newman's  protests 
against  these  abuses  enlist  approval  now :  many  will  share 
his  feeling  that  tutorial  work  in  an  Oxford  college  implied  far 
more  than  its  leaders  were  willing  to  admit,  and  justified  such 
aims  at  the  growth  of  virtuous  character  as  might  fairly 
occupy  a  clergyman.^  Accordingly  he  suggested  that  the 
tutors  of  Oriel  should  divide  into  groups  the  men  under  their 
care,  each  tutor  being  responsible  for  the  religious  as  well  as 
the  educational  guidance  of  those  intrusted  to  him.  In 
conjunction  with  Froude  and  Robert  Isaac  Wilberforce,  he 
sought  to  remodel  the  lectures,  introduce  new  textbooks,  and 
revive  other  important  academic  interests  which  were  sacri- 
ficed by  conservatism  and  negligence.  Hawkins  rejected 
these  proposals,  whereupon  the  three  tutors  tendered  their 
resignations.  This  ultimatum  did  not  daunt  the  Provost, 
who  promptly  called  in  Hampden  to  give  lectures,  and  though 
he  could  not  compel  the  tutors  to  relinquish  the  pupils  they 
had,  he  announced  his  intention  to  send  them  no  more. 
Out-generaled  and  defeated,  Newman  surrendered,  and 
Hawkins  doubtless  felt  relieved  that  he  was  rid  of  a  teacher 
who  attempted  to  act  on  his  own  discretion,  and  whose 
theological  opinions  were  too  radical  for  the  welfare  of  the 
college.  Newman,  on  his  part,  declared  that  the  Oxford 
Movement  never  would  have  been  had  he  not  been  practically 
dismissed  from  his  tutorship,  or  had  Keble,  not  Hawkins,  been 
Provost. 

More  than  half  of  1830  had  now  gone,  a  year  of  trials  and 
troubles.  "I  am  desponding,"  he  wrote  to  Froude.  "All 
my  plans  fail.    When  did  I  ever  succeed  in  any  exertion  for 

I  E.  A.  Abbott:  "The  Anglican  Career  of  Cardinal  Newman"  ;  Vol.  I, 
p.  206. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  485 

others  ?  I  do  not  say  this  in  complaint,  but  really  doubting 
whether  I  ought  to  meddle."  He  steadied  himself  with  the 
reflection  that  disappointment  and  self-denial  were  necessary 
for  the  reception  and  retention  of  spiritual  truth;  and,  re- 
leased from  his  duties  at  Oriel,  awaited  other  employment. 
Dr.  Jenkyns  invited  him  to  participate  in  a  projected  Eccle- 
siastical History,  the  outcome  being,  as  far  as  Newman  was 
concerned,  his  volume  on  the  Arians.  In  writing  it  he  felt  an 
intense  intellectual  pleasure  he  had  not  previously  known. 
Yet  the  task  was  not  altogether  congenial  for  so  versatile  and 
discursive  a  mind  as  his.  He  had  to  deal  with  such  un- 
fathomable truths  as  the  Triple  Personality  and  the  Divine 
Unity,  those  vast  and  remote  ideas  in  the  revelation  and 
philosophy  of  religion  which  have  taxed  even  greater  spirits. 
Nor  did  he  enjoy  that  thorough  acquaintance  with  patristic 
literature  at  which  his  sister  Jemima  hinted  when  she  reminded 
him  that  Archbishop  Usher  had  spent  eighteen  years  in  read- 
ing the  Fathers.  In  the  December  of  1831  he  wrote,  "I  was 
working  too  hard  at  the  '  Arians.'  It  was  due  next  summer, 
and  I  had  only  begun  to  read  for  it,  or  scarcely  so,  the  sum- 
mer past."  Froude  grew  impatient  with  his  "dallying," 
declared  against  his  "fiddling"  any  longer  with  the  introduc- 
tion to  the  work,  and  predicted  his  ending  in  "a  scrape." 
Newman  was  resolved,  however,  to  muster  all  the  learning 
within  his  reach :  he  toiled  with  a  vengeance,  and  where  his 
learning  was  at  fault,  his  rhetorical  gifts  admirably  served 
his  immediate  purposes.  Yet  two  defects  could  scarcely  be 
concealed :  his  neglect  of  scientific  research,  and  the  irrele- 
vancy of  some  of  his  dissertations.  Desirous  always  of  lean- 
ing on  authority  in  religious  matters,  he  forgot  that  history 
has  no  prejudices  in  behalf  of  ecclesiasticism,  and  he  intro- 
duced a  sort  of  reasoning,  best  described  as  heart-foam,  to 
supply  the  lack  of  that  strict  historical  accuracy  which  checks 
undue  speculation  and  is  content  to  set  down  the  thing  that 
actually  occurred. 

His  general  treatment  of  the  Arian  period  was  based  on  St. 


486      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

■Clement's  theory  that  all  religion  was  from  God,  and  that 
Christianity  did  not  supersede  so  much  as  it  corrected  and 
sanctified  other  forms  of  belief.  While  divine  in  its  origin, 
it  depended  on  human  agents  for  its  transmission,  and  con- 
sequently suffered  some  diminution  of  content  and  quality. 
The  teachings  of  the  New  Testament  were  limited  by  the 
intellectual  processes  that  conveyed  them,  since  these  were 
necessarily  unequal  to  their  full  comprehension.  The  creeds 
likewise  were  in  spirit  and  essence  far  below  the  level  of  the 
august  propositions  they  attempted  to  embody,  hence  the  in- 
troduction from  time  to  time  of  orthodoxy's  multiplying  and 
minute  articles  as  a  protection  against  specific  errors  and 
heresies.  With  their  growth  Christian  societies  naturally 
became  more  complex,  and  required  additional  explanation 
and  defense.  Exactitude  of  credal  expression  was  elevated 
to  a  theological  virtue,  requisite  for  the  permanence  of 
primitive  Christianity  and  but  for  that  exactitude  the  char- 
acter and  meaning  of  the  Apostolic  age  would  have  been 
lost  to  mankind.  Upon  these  grounds  Newman  pleaded  for 
a  rigid  enforcement  of  formulae.  "If  the  Church,"  he 
averred,  "would  be  vigorous  and  influential,  it  must  be 
decided  and  plain  spoken."  The  corrosive  effects  of  liber- 
alism, so  energetic  in  Arian  days,  were  still  in  evidence,  still 
demanding  precedence  and  sanction.  Left  unchecked, 
they  would  destroy  not  only  the  basis  of  revealed  religion, 
but  ultimately  everything  that  could  be  called  religion  at  all. 
His  study  of  the  Arian  controversy  strengthened  his  convic- 
tion that  Apostolic  precept  and  practice  were  in  complete  ac- 
cord with  the  characteristic  conceptions  of  Anglo-Catholicism. 
He  saw,  or  thought  he  saw,  instructive  parallels  between  the 
sees  occupied  in  the  fourth  century  by  Arian  bishops  and 
those  of  his  own  communion.  In  both  instances  the  purity 
of  faith  was  preserved  by  a  few  valiant  reformers,  who  had 
confidence  in  a  divine  intervention  for  their  cause.  Atha- 
nasius  had  arisen  in  solitary  grandeur  against  the  defilers  of 
God's    heritage;    similarly   some    holy   warrior    would    be 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  487 

found,  equipped,  and  sent  forth,  to  deliver  the  distressed 
Anghcanism  of  the  earher  nineteenth  century. 

The  volume,  which  was  the  result  of  a  little  over  six 
months'  strenuous  effort,  might  well  have  taken  him  more 
than  as  many  years.  "Tired  wonderfully,"  he  says  of 
himself,  "continually  on  the  point  of  fainting,  quite  worn 
out."  He  had  been  relieved  of  a  crushing  burden  none  too 
soon,  and  at  the  same  time  he  was  also  giving  up  the  last  of 
his  pupils  at  Oriel.  The  cessation  left  him  free  to  brood  in 
theological  gloom  over  the  forbidding  prospects  of  the  faith, 
the  result,  as  he  supposed,  of  the  ever  widening  opposition 
between  the  Church  and  the  world. 

IV 

His  pent-up  feelings  found  their  outlet  in  the  incomparable 
parochial  sermons  which  he  began  to  deliver  at  St.  Mary's 
in  1828.  They  enforced  his  contention  that  things  could 
not  stand  as  they  were,  that  Christ's  Church  was  indestructi- 
ble, that  she  must  rise  again  and  flourish,  when  the  poor 
creatures  of  a  day  who  opposed  her  had  crumbled  into  dust. 
As  a  preacher  he  was  profoundly  conscious  of  the  sacredness 
of  his  vocation,  and  in  its  fulfillment  was  superior  to  any  other 
divine  of  his  day.  Oxford's  foremost  pulpit  had  several 
famous  occupants  during  the  nineteenth  century :  among 
them,  Pusey,  saint  and  scholar,  whose  personality  for  a 
time  overshadowed  Anglicanism ;  Mozley,  the  deepest 
yet  clearest  thinker  of  the  group;  Manning,  self-conscious, 
politic,  and  facile  of  speech;  Liddon,  "with  the  Italianate 
profile,  orator  and  ascetic."  But  none  approached  Newman 
in  his  analysis  of  the  human  heart,  his  exquisite  rhetoric,  his 
tender  or  indignant  fervor.  He  united  simple  earnestness 
and  refinement  with  a  sense  of  reserved  power  on  the  verge 
of  being  released.  Although  his  audiences  were  often  small, 
they  were  influential,  and  eventually  he  brought  Oxford  to 
his  feet.     "His  hearers  felt,"   said  Principal  Shairp,   "as 


488      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

though  one  of  the  early  Fathers  had  returned  to  earth." 
He  appealed  to  them  with  a  directness  and  force,  and  a 
passionate  and  sustained  earnestness  for  a  high  spiritual 
standard,  to  be  seriously  realized  in  conduct,  the  more  im- 
perative because  the  nation  had  come  to  the  verge  of  religious 
dissolution,  and  was  resting  complacently  in  its  own  pride 
and  might,  while  divine  judgment  threatened  its  recreancy. 
Mr.  Gladstone  said  of  him :  "  Dr.  Newman's  manner  in  the 
pulpit  was  one  which,  if  you  considered  it  in  its  separate  parts, 
would  lead  you  to  arrive  at  very  unsatisfactory  conclusions. 
There  was  not  very  much  change  in  the  inflection  of  the 
voice ;  action  there  was  none ;  his  sermons  were  read,  and  his 
eyes  were  always  on  his  book ;  and  all  that,  you  will  say,  is 
against  efficiency  in  preaching.  Yes ;  but  you  take  the  man 
as  a  whole,  and  there  was  a  stamp  and  a  seal  upon  him,  there 
was  a  solemn  music  and  sweetness  in  his  tone,  there  was  a 
completeness  in  the  figure,  taken  together  with  the  tone  and 
with  the  manner,  which  made  even  his  delivery,  such  as  I 
have  described  it,  and  though  exclusively  with  written  ser- 
mons, singularly  attractive."  ^  The  stamp  and  seal  were, 
indeed,  manifestly  impressed  by  nothing  less  than  conse- 
crated genius.  His  two  discourses  on  "  Holiness  Necessary 
for  Future  Blessedness,"  and  "The  Ventures  of  Faith,"  are 
worthy  examples  of  a  new  type  of  prophetical  speech,  heard 
with  strained  attention,  and  long  remembered  and  repeated. 
Holiness  he  defined  as  an  inward  separation  from  the  world, 
and  in  answer  to  the  question,  "  Why  salvation  is  impossible 
without  this  frame  and  temper  of  mind  ?  "  he  replied  :  "  Even 
supposing  a  man  of  unholy  life  were  suffered  to  enter  heaven, 
he  would  not  be  happy  there,  so  that  it  would  be  no  mercy  to 
permit  him  to  enter.  .  .  .  He  would  sustain  a  great  dis- 
appointment, he  would  find  no  discourse  but  that  which  he 
shunned  on  earth ;  no  pursuits  but  those  which  he  had  dis- 
liked or  despised  ;  nothing  which  bound  him  to  ought  else  in 
the  universe  and  made  him  feel  at  home,  nothing  which  he 

'  Justin  McCarthy:    "History  of  Our  Own  Times"  ;    Vol.  I,  p.  142. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  489 

could  enter  into  and  rest  upon.  He  would  perceive  him- 
self to  be  an  isolated  being,  cut  away  by  Supreme  Power  from 
those  objects  which  were  still  entwined  around  his  heart."  ^ 

The  second  sermon,  "The  Ventures  of  Faith,"  is  a  search- 
ing and  inspiring  challenge  to  all  who  would  direct  their 
heavenward  path  by  that  high  and  unearthly  spirit  which  is 
the  royal,  unmistakable  sign  of  the  children  of  the  Kingdom. 
The  text,  taken  from  the  reply  of  James  and  John  to  the 
words  of  Jesus,  "  Are  ye  able  to  drink  of  the  cup  that  I  shall 
drink  of,  and  to  be  baptized  with  the  baptism  that  I  am 
baptized  with?"  was  used  to  emphasize  the  wisdom  of 
endeavors  after  the  Christian  life  even  when  they  are  at- 
tended by  no  promise  of  absolute  attainment.  "No  one 
among  us  knows  for  certain  that  he  himself  will  persevere 
unto  the  end ;  yet  every  one  among  us,  to  give  himself  even  a 
chance  of  success  at  all,  must  make  a  venture."  Faith  is  the 
essence  of  a  Christian  life,  and  our  duty  lies  in  the  hazardous 
directions  where  faith  is  demanded,  since  fear,  risk,  danger, 
anxiety,  require  its  presence  and  attest  its  nobility  and 
excellence.^ 

"No  one,"  comments  Dr.  Alexander  Whyte,  in  speaking  of 
other  discourses  in  this  series,  "  can  feel  the  full  force  of  New- 
man's great  sermons  on  'The  Incarnation'  and  on  'The 
Atoning  Death  of  God  the  Son '  who  has  not  gone  with  New- 
man to  the  sources  of  the  sermons  in  Athanasius,  and  in  Basil, 
and  in  Cyril."  ^  Nothing  in  his  homilies  showed  any  sign  of 
the  youth  and  comparative  inexperience  of  the  preacher,  or 
was  immature  and  technical  in  treatment.  The  creeds, 
confessions,  and  catechisms  were  vitalized ;  reclothed  with 
the  beauty  and  the  majesty  of  genuine  sacred  oratory.  They 
were  poems,  and  better  still,  transcripts  from  the  most  in- 
spired souls,  as  well  as  from  the  souls  to  which  they  min- 
istered ;  •  reasonings  in  a  lofty  dialectic ;  views  of  life  and 
of  goodness,  of  sin  and  its  malefic  consequences,  which,  in 

'  "Parochial  and  Plain  Sermons"  ;   Vol.  I,  Sermon  I. 

*  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  Sermon  XX.      ^  "Newman,  An  Appreciation"  ;   p.  125. 


490      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

numerous  instances,  marked  the  beginning  of  a  new  life  in 
those  who  heard  them.  Their  chaste  yet  glowing  diction 
and  spiritual  perception  were  employed  to  such  effect  that 
Newman's  followers  crowded  St.  Mary's  as  the  Piagnoni  did 
San  Marco  at  Florence  to  listen  to  Savonarola,  and  exhibited 
an  equal  enthusiasm,  if  not  extravagance. 

On  December  2,  1832,  when  preaching  before  the  Univer- 
sity, on  "Wilfulness,  the  Sin  of  Saul,"  he  entered  upon  a 
sweeping  condemnation  of  English  society  and  a  defense  of 
religious  partisanship :  "  The  present  open  resistance  to 
constituted  power,  and  (what  is  more  to  the  purpose)  the 
indulgent  toleration  of  it,  the  irreverence  towards  Antiquity, 
the  unscrupulous  and  wanton  violation  of  the  commands  and 
usages  of  our  forefathers,  the  undoing  of  their  benefactions, 
the  profanation  of  the  Church,  the  bold  transgression  of  the 
duty  of  Ecclesiastical  Unity,  the  avowed  disdain  of  what  is 
called  party  religion  (though  Christ  undeniably  made  a 
party  the  vehicle  of  His  doctrine,  and  did  not  cast  it  at  random 
on  the  world,  as  men  would  now  have  it),  the  growing  indif- 
ference to  the  Catholic  Creed,  the  skeptical  objections  to 
portions  of  its  doctrine,  the  arguings  and  discussings  and 
comparings  and  correctings  and  rejectings,  and  all  the  train 
of  presumptuous  exercises,  to  which  its  sacred  articles  are 
subjected,  the  numberless  discordant  criticisms  on  the 
Liturgy,  which  have  shot  up  on  all  sides  of  us ;  the  general 
irritable  state  of  mind,  which  is  everywhere  to  be  witnessed, 
and  craving  for  change  in  all  things;  what  do  all  these 
symptoms  show,  but  that  the  spirit  of  Saul  still  lives  ?  —  that 
wilfulness,  which  is  the  antagonist  principle  to  the  zeal  of 
David,  —  the  principle  of  cleaving  and  breaking  down  all 
divine  ordinances,  instead  of  building  up."  ^  It  will  be 
remembered  that  one  of  the  sins  of  Saul  was  his  refusal  to 
perpetrate  a  wholesale  massacre  on  the  Amalekites,  an  act 
which  compared  very  favorably  with  Samuel's  demand  that 
the  unfortunate  captives  should  be  ruthlessly  exterminated, 

*  "University  Sermons"  ;   Sermon  IX. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  491 

or  with  David's  betrayal  of  the  unsuspecting  Uriah.  The 
misuse  of  the  word  party  suggested  that  our  Lord  Him- 
self originated  religious  factions  because  He  employed  a  small 
group  of  His  countrymen  as  the  immediate  emissaries  of  His 
Gospel.  The  preacher's  exaggerated  references  to  the  crav- 
ing for  change  in  all  things  were  characteristic  of  the  Univer- 
sity don  who  is  proverbially  blind  to  widespread  interests 
beyond  his  narrow  domains,  and  on  the  other  hand,  so  alert 
to  whatever  occurs  within  their  boundaries,  as  to  overrate  its 
actual  importance.  Even  as  a  preacher  Newman  harbored 
these  incapacitating  sentiments,  refusing  to  view  from  any 
other  standpoint  than  his  own  the  measures  he  denounced 
in  adroit  periphrasis. 

Three  days  after  this  deliverance  he  was  at  Falmouth 
awaiting  Hurrell  Froude  and  his  father,  and  hourly 
expecting  the  vessel  which  was  to  take  them  and  him  to 
the  Mediterranean.  He  found  it  hard  to  leave  Oxford ; 
a  brief  visit  to  Cambridge  had  only  intensified  his  longing 
for  the  former  place,  but  rest  and  recreation  were  im- 
perative both  for  him  and  for  Hurrell  Froude,  who  had 
been  out  of  health  for  some  months.  They  set  sail  at  a 
moment  when  the  Anglican  Church,  in  Mozley's  phrase,  was 
folding  her  robes  about  her  to  die  in  what  dignity  she  could. 
The  bill  for  the  suppression  of  the  Irish  sees  was  in  progress, 
and  the  English  bishops  were  warned  by  Lord  Grey  that  they 
too  must  set  their  house  in  order.  "I  had  fierce  thoughts 
against  the  Liberals,"  confessed  Newman,  and  again,  "We 
have  just  heard  of  the  Irish  Church  Reform  Bill.  Well 
done ;  my  blind  premier,  confiscate  and  rob,  till,  like  Samson, 
you  pull  down  the  Political  structure  on  your  own  head."  ^ 
For  the  moment  his  attention  was  turned  to  less  troubled 
prospects,  yet  go  where  he  would,  he  could  not  escape  him- 
self. The  subjective  world  in  which  he  dwelt,  into  which  he 
fully  admitted  none  —  a  world  quick  and  intense  beyond  the 
ordinary  —  created  its  own  pain,  welcomed  its  ow^n  infre- 

1  "Letters  and  Correspondence"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  310. 


492      THREE    RELIGIOUS  LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

quent  gleams  of  joy,  and  indulged  its  own  reveries.     "He 
changed  his  climate,  but  not  his  mind." 

His  letters  and  the  poems  he  composed  while  journeying 
abroad  give  a  sufficient  account  of  his  sentiments  and  ex- 
periences at  this  stage.  During  the  voyage  he  enlarged  in 
his  correspondence  with  his  mother  upon  the  pleasures  of 
external  things,  avowing  that  he  had  never  spent  happier  days 
than  those  he  described.  Nature's  ministries  had  evidently 
refreshed  him,  and  for  a  brief  space  his  interests  ceased  to 
be  purely  personal.  He  spoke  of  the  ocean's  entrancing  as- 
pects and  varied  colors ;  of  the  rich  indigo  of  its  placid  sur- 
face, of  its  white-edged  waves  ruflBing  into  foam  under  a  stir 
of  wind,  and  again,  curling  into  flashing,  momentary  rain- 
bows. The  sun  was  setting  in  a  car  of  gold ;  the  horizon 
above  changed  from  pale-orange  tints  to  a  gradually  heighten- 
ing dusky  red.  As  night  closed  in  upon  these  ravishing 
scenes  the  evening  star  appeared  high  and  pure  in  the  deepen- 
ing gloom.  The  Portuguese  coast  slipped  past  like  a  veiled 
pageant,  tantalizing  in  its  dim  outline,  over  which  stood  the 
summits  of  Torres  Vedras,  where  Wellington  had  kept  at  bay 
the  valor  of  France.  At  the  foot  of  the  reddish  brown  cliffs 
the  breakers  dashed  and  rebounded  in  crested  spume  which 
rose  like  Venus  from  the  sea;  "I  never  saw  more  graceful 
forms,  and  so  sedate  and  deliberate  in  their  rising  and  falling."  ^ 
Yet  these  delights  could  not  long  detain  him  ;  the  mood  was 
transient ;  his  mind  soon  reverted  to  its  introspective  habit, 
and  he  began  to  fear  the  dangers  concealed  beneath  sensuous 
perceptions.  Penetrating  but  a  little  way  into  reality  it- 
self, these  might  easily  distract  him  from  the  more  preg- 
nant elements  of  being.  The  principle  of  dualism  had  so 
infected  his  reasonings  that  where  inspired  psalmists  and 
prophets  had  seen  in  Creation  the  wisdom  and  beneficence  of 
God,  Newman  frequently  discerned  "the  craft  and  subtlety 
of  the  Tempter  of  mankind."  He  touched  on  natural  won- 
ders not  so  much  for  their  own  sake,  as  to  explain  the  motions 

'  "Letters  and  Correspondence" ;   Vol.  I,  p.  257. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  493 

of  his  breast.  "I  have  good  hope,"  he  writes,  "I  shall  not 
be  unsettled  by  my  present  wanderings.  For  what  are  all 
these  strange  sights  but  vanities,  attended  to,  as  they  ever 
must  be,  with  anxious  watchfulness  lest  the  heart  be  cor- 
rupted by  them."  ^ 

He  was  still  on  the  verge  of  the  thirties,  and  had  only 
recently  undergone  his  metamorphosis  into  the  extreme 
clerical  form.  Yet  one  might  imagine  that  the  ecclesiastic 
had  been  organized  in  this  new  made  divine  by  a  hereditary 
transmission  of  long  descent.  He  was  a  compound  of  the 
evangelicalism  of  his  youthful  home  and  the  sacerdotal- 
ism of  his  University  circle.  His  negative  feeling  of 
antagonism  to  the  sensible  world,  and  his  positive  feel- 
ing of  a  divinely  appointed  mission  combined  to  separate 
him  from  the  most  charming  surroundings.  Even  when  he  is 
on  the  track  of  Ulysses,  gazing  on  Ithaca,  and  aware  that  at 
last  his  earliest  visions  were  made  actual  before  his  eyes,  he 
turned  back  to  the  memories  of  his  father's  garden  at  Ham  ; 
memories  so  faint,  so  shadowA>%  that  they  evaded  his  pursuit ; 
memories  of  that  twilight  before  the  dawn  "  when  one  seems 
almost  to  realize  the  remnants  of  a  preexisting  state."  ^ 
The  historic  landscapes  teeming  with  classic  reminiscences 
which  have  usually  fascinated  poets  and  scholars  could  not 
prevail  against  his  inwardness;  he  was  interested  in  them, 
but  nothing  more,  and  would  have  been  well  satisfied  to  find 
himself  suddenly  transported  to  his  rooms  at  Oriel .^  "I 
shrink  voluntarily  from  the  contact  of  the  world,  and,  whether 
or  not  natural  disposition  assists  this  feeling,  and  a  per- 
ception almost  morbid  of  any  deficiencies  and  absurdities  — 
anyhow,  neither  the  kindest  attentions  nor  the  most  sublime 
sights  have  over  me  influence  enough  to  draw  me  out  of  the 
way,  and,  deliberately  as  I  have  set  out  about  my  present 
wanderings,  yet  I  heartily  wish  they  were  over,  and  I  only 
endure  the  sights,  and  had  much  rather  have  seen  than  see 

1  "Letters  and  Correspondence"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  266. 

2  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  279-280.  « Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  281-282. 


494       THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

them,  though  the  while  I  am  extremely  astonished  and  almost 
enchanted  at  them."  ^ 

This  paradoxical  state  increased  his  determination  to  seek 
afresh  the  benefits  of  self-seclusion,  and  he  seized  the  occa- 
sion to  write  a  eulogistic  sonnet  on  Melchizedek,  the  legend- 
ary king  and  priest,  of  whom  he  sings, 

"Thrice  blest  are  they,  who  feel  their  loneliness ; 
To  whom  nor  voice  of  friend  nor  pleasant  scene 
Brings  that  on  which  the  sadden'd  heart  can  lean. 
Yea,  the  rich  earth,  garb'd  in  her  daintiest  dress 
Of  light  and  joy,  doth  but  the  more  oppress, 
Claiming  responsive  smiles  and  rapture  high, 
Till,  sick  at  heart,  beyond  the  veil  they  fly, 
Seeking  His  Presence  Who  alone  can  bless. 
Such,  in  strange  days,  the  weapons  of  Heaven's  grace : 
When,  passing  by  the  high-born  Hebrew  line, 
He  forms  the  vessel  of  His  vast  design. 
Fatherless,  homeless,  reft  of  age  and  place. 
Severed  from  earth,  and  careless  of  its  wreck, 
Born  through  long  woe  His  rare  Melchizedek."  ^ 

Although  such  isolation  was  conducive  to  atrabilious  views 
and  an  open  rebellion  against  the  conventionalities,  neverthe- 
less it  was  measurably  justified.  For  Newman  was  at 
bottom  neither  a  complacent  egoist  nor  an  ambitious  ecclesi- 
astic, but  an  earnest  servant  of  truth,  as  he  understood  it. 
The  extent  of  his  influence  has  been  variously  estimated,  and 
his  career  has  given  rise  to  numerous  and  contrary  inferences. 
Yet  it  would  be  a  desecration  to  make  capital  out  of  the  worst 
of  these,  nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  one  of  his  most 
relentless  critics  has  testified  that  in  his  conduct  of  the  Trac- 
tarian  Movement  he  showed  few,  if  any,  symptoms  of  a  wish 
to  be  the  head  of  a  party,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  a  laudable 
desire  to  do  anything  that  seemed  likely  to  please  God.^  For 
,*Y       this  end  he  sacrificed  otherwise  desirable  projects,  and  ex- 

>  "Letters  and  Correspondence"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  282.      »  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  288. 
*  Edwin  A.  Abbott:    "The  Anglican  Career  of    Cardinal  Newman"; 
Vol.  I,  pp.  256-257. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  495 

posed  himself  to  serious  misunderstandings,  holding  his 
integrity  at  heavy  charges  to  himself,  and  facing  the  issue 
that  in  dealing  with  unseen  verities  the  human  mind  is 
bound  to  accept  truths  beyond  its  powers  of  demonstra- 
tion, liike  the  microscopist  who  carefully  separates  the 
organism  he  investigates,  shuts  off  superfluous  light  and 
adjusts  his  instrument  to  what  light  he  requires,  Newman 
economized  by  consecrating  imagination,  intellect,  memory, 
and  utterance  to  those  transcendencies  which  were,  as  he 
believed,  jealous  of  any  diversion  from  themselves. 

His  reflections  soon  turned  from  obvious  historical  asso- 
ciations to  others  of  Scriptural  or  Churchly  origin.  "What 
has  inspired  me  .  .  .  these  two  days  is  the  thought  that  I 
am  in  the  Mediterranean.  Consider  how  its  coasts  have 
been  the  seat  and  scene  of  the  most  celebrated  empires 
and  events  which  are  in  history.  Think  of  the  variety  of 
men,  famous  in  every  way,  who  have  had  to  do  with  it. 
Here  the  Romans  and  Carthaginians  fought;  here  the 
Phoenicians  traded  ;  here  Jonah  was  in  the  storm ;  here  St. 
Paul  was  shipwrecked ;  here  the  great  Athanasius  voyaged 
to  Rome."  At  the  mention  of  Athanasius,  he  broke  into 
somewhat  halting  verse,  and  pathetically  asked, 

"When  shall  our  Northern  Church  her  Champion  see. 
Raised  by  Divine  decree 
To  shield  the  ancient  Truth  at  his  own  harm?"  ^ 

The  ferment  in  that  "  Northern  Church  "  from  which  he  was 
temporarily  absent  was  ever  present  in  his  mind.  In  his 
highest  flights  of  vision  or  his  most  mournful  soliloquies  he 
interrupted  himself  to  fling  an  admonitory  parenthesis  at 
"  frowning  Gibraltar,"  "  infidel  Ammon,"  and  "  niggard  Tyre," 
alike  pressed  into  the  service  of  the  "Bride  of  Heaven,"  who 
was  exhorted  to  be  patient  and  to  bide  her  time.  The  one 
thing  now  needful  for  her,  as  for  him,  was  to  find  the  basis 
of  sufficient  Authority  upon  which  to  rest  her  religious  de- 

*  "Letters  and  Correspondence"  ;   Vol.  I,  pp.  266-267. 


496      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

velopment,  and  no  longer  be  driven  to  hunt  for  it  indefi- 
nitely beyond  the  bounds  of  possibility,  or  attempt  illogically 
to  construct  it  with  the  aid  of  Private  Judgment}  Hitherto 
he  had  said  very  little  about  the  sinister  side  of  the  Greek 
or  Roman  Churches,  but  the  spectacles  he  and  Froude 
witnessed  in  Sicily  and  Naples  both  men  lamented.  Froude 
wrote  to  Keble :  "  The  Church  of  England  has  fallen  low, 
and  will  probably  be  worse  before  it  is  better;  but  let  the 
Whigs  do  their  worst,  they  cannot  sink  us  so  deep  as  these 
people  have  allowed  themselves  to  fall  while  retaining  all 
the  superficials  of  a  religious  country."  ^  Newman  seconded 
Fronde's  views:  "The  state  of  the  Church  is  deplorable. 
It  seems  as  if  Satan  was  let  out  of  prison  to  range  the  whole 
earth  again.  As  far  as  our  little  experience  goes,  every- 
thing seems  to  confirm  the  notion  received  among  ourselves 
of  the  priesthood,  while  on  the  other  hand  the  Church  is 
stripped  of  its  temporalities  and  reduced  to  distress."  ^ 

Rome  was  reached  at  last,  the  city  of  divine  apocalypses ; 
too  complex,  manifold,  contradictory,  magnificent,  for  New- 
man's understanding.  As  he  walked  along  the  Appian  Way 
over  the  Pontine  marshes  and  looked  upon  the  metropolis 
of  Christianity,  a  mingled  throng  of  bitter  thoughts  and 
sweet  besieged  him :   he  hesitated    whether   to   name   her 

"Light  of  the  wide  West, 
Or  heinous  error-seat." 

Her  titles  glowed  in  the  stern  judgment-fires  which  would  end 
earth's  strife  with  heaven  and  open  the  eternal  woe.^  Eventu- 
ally the  place  of  celestial  traditions  subdued  his  questionings ; 
the  superstitions  of  his  youth  that  Rome  was  the  "Beast" 
which  stamped  its  image  on  mankind,  the  "Great  Harlot" 
who  made  drunk  the  kings  of  the  earth,  were  dispelled,  and 
he  began  to  regard  her  as  vicariously  bearing,  in  her  corrup- 

'  Edwin  A.  Abbott:  "The  Anglican  Career  of  Cardinal  Newman"; 
Vol.  I,  p.  240. 

*  "Remains"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  294. 

8  "  Letters  and  Correspondence"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  310.     *  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  315. 


JOHN    HENRY   NEWMAN  497 

tion  and  distress,  the  sins  of  the  whole  world.  He  wrote  to 
Frederic  Rogers,  who  next  to  Froude  was  his  confidant, 
"There  is  such  an  air  of  greatness  and  repose  cast  over  the 
whole,  and,  independent  of  what  one  knows  from  history, 
there  are  such  traces  of  long  sorrow  and  humiliation,  suffer- 
ing, punishment,  and  decay,  that  one  has  a  mixture  of  feelings, 
partly  such  as  those  with  which  one  would  approach  a  corpse, 
and  partly  those  which  would  be  excited  by  the  sight  of  the 
spirit  which  had  left  it.  It  brings  to  my  mind  Jeremiah's 
words,  .  .  .  when  Jerusalem,  or  (sometimes)  the  prophet, 
speaks  as  the  smitten  of  God.  Oxford,  of  course,  must  ever 
be  a  sacred  city  to  an  Oxonian,  and  is  to  me.  It  would  be  a 
strange  want  of  right  pride  to  think  of  disloyalty  to  it,  even 
if  our  creed  were  not  purer  than  the  Roman ;  yet  the  lines 
of  Virgil  keenly  and  affectionately  describe  what  I  feel 
about  this  wonderful  city."  ^  He  begged  that  Rogers  would 
repeat  to  himself  the  passage  from  the  Eclogues  to  which  he 
referred  and  dwell  upon  each  word  : 

"Urbem  quam  dicunt  Romam,  Melibcee,  putavi, 
Stultus  ego,  huic  nostrae  similem,"  etc. 

The  quotation  describes  the  change  in  a  rustic  of  northern 
Italy  who  had  been  presumptuous  enough  to  imagine  that 
Rome  was  like  his  own  city,  but  who  soon  knew  that  she  was 
to  the  latter  as  a  cypress  tree  to  a  bramble  bush.  The  com- 
parison is  informing :  Newman  never  ceased  to  love  Oxford, 
but  another  love  was  now  beginning  to  divide  his  loyalty. 
It  was  not  the  Rome  of  the  Emperors,  nor  that  of  Michel- 
angelo and  Raff  aelle ;  it  was  the  Rome  of  the  Apostles  and  the 
Martyrs  that  impressed  his  prepared  imagination,  and  made 
a  bid  for  his  heart. 

The  "Apologia"  omits  some  important  facts  connected 
with  this  visit,  and,  although  it  states  that  Newman  and 
Froude  twice  waited  upon  Dr.  Wiseman,  then  Rector  of  the 
English   College,   and   afterwards  famous  for  his  pastoral 

'  "Letters  and  Correspondence" ;   Vol.  I,  pp.  318-319. 
2k 


498      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

letter  to  England  dated  "from  out  the  Flaminian  Gate,"  no 
hint  is  given  of  the  object  or  the  result  of  their  interviews. 
From  Froude's  "Remains,"  however,  we  learn  that  they 
sought  to  ascertain  whether  or  not  the  perversions  of  the 
truth,  which  were  adapted  for  Rome  but  not  for  England, 
could  be  regarded  as  non-essentials ;  and  as  to  what  were  the 
fundamental  differences  between  Catholicism  and  Anglican- 
ism, and  whether  these  were  so  great  as  to  prevent  all  hope 
of  union.  They  discovered  to  their  dismay  that  not  one  step 
could  be  gained  in  that  direction,  unless  their  Church 
"swallowed  the  Council  of  Trent  as  a  whole."  Froude 
frankly  expressed  his  resentment  and  disgust  in  the  ensuing 
note: 

"We  made  our  approaches  to  the  subject  as  delicately  as 
we  could.  Our  first  notion  was  that  the  terms  of  commun- 
ion were  within  certain  limits  under  the  control  of  the  Pope, 
or  in  case  he  could  not  dispense  solely,  yet  at  any  rate  the 
acts  of  one  Council  might  be  rescinded  by  another ;  indeed, 
that  in  Charles  the  First's  time  it  had  been  intended  to  negoti- 
ate a  reconciliation  on  the  terms  on  which  things  stood  before 
the  Council  of  Trent.  But  we  found  to  our  horror  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Church  made  the  acts  of 
each  successive  Council  obligatory  for  ever,  that  what  had 
been  once  decided  could  never  be  meddled  with  again;  in 
fact,  that  they  were  committed  finally  and  irrevocably,  .  .  . 
even  though  the  Church  of  England  should  again  become 
what  it  was  in  Laud's  time,  or  indeed,  what  it  may  have  been 
up  to  the  atrocious  Council."  ^  "  Right  pride "  in  Oxford  and 
the  Establishment  of  which  it  was  the  citadel  had  certainly 
met  with  a  fall  when  two  Anglican  clergymen  could  seek  inter- 
views with  a  distinguished  Roman  theologian,  afterwards  a 
Cardinal,  in  order  to  discuss  the  terms  on  which  their  Church 
could  obtain  reconciliation  with  the  Papal  See.  Froude,  as 
we  have  noted,  made  no  effort  to  conceal  his  feelings ;  New- 
man said  little,  but  the  probabilities  are  that  he  was  even 

1  "Remains"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  307. 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  499 

more  profoundly  depressed.  "I  ought  to  tell  you,"  he  wrote 
to  his  sister  Jemima,  "  about  the  Miserere  at  Rome,  my  going 
up  St.  Peter's,  and  the  Easter  illumination,  our  conversations 
with  Dr.  Wiseman  and  with  M.  Bunsen,  our  search  for  the 
Church  of  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury,  my  pilgrimage  to  the 
place  of  St.  Paul's  martyrdom,  the  Catacombs,  and  all  the 
other  sights  which  have  stolen  away  my  heart,  but  I  forbear 
till  we  meet.  Oh  that  Rome  were  not  Rome  !  but  I  seem  to 
see  as  clear  as  day  that  a  union  with  her  is  impossible.  She  is 
the  cruel  Church  asking  of  us  impossibilities,  excommunicat- 
ing us  for  disobedience,  and  now  watching  and  exulting 
over  our  approaching  overthrow."  The  conversations  with 
Wiseman  were  one  of  the  significant  events  of  Newman's 
journey ;  they  afterwards  echoed  in  his  heart,  and  begot  that 
uneasy  questioning  which  ended  with  his  repudiation  of 
Anglicanism.  The  mental  peculiarities  which  are  produced 
by  granting  to  dogma,  resting  on  a  very  puzzling  structure  of 
evidence,  the  place  and  power  of  primary  truth,  had  already 
become  apparent  in  him.  The  wholesome,  regulative  co- 
operation of  the  intellect  with  the  heart  by  which  the  impulses 
of  the  latter  are  carefully  examined  with  the  view  of  deter- 
mining their  legitimacy,  came  to  be  regarded  by  him  as 
savoring  of  presumption.  When  men,  however  richly  en- 
dowed, slip  into  this  state  of  mind,  and  require  no  other  pass- 
port for  theological  statements  than  that  they  shall  accord 
with  their  own  fixed  conceptions  of  the  revelations  of  Deity, 
they  are  apt  to  search  not  for  facts  as  such,  but  for  facts  that 
appear  to  support  their  position.  Adverse  evidence  can  only 
be  encountered  by  stratagems  that  demoralize  healthy  think- 
ing, and  the  last  expedient  is  to  throw  the  burden  upon 
conscience,  thus  depriving  reason  of  its  proper  function  and 
elevating  questionable  articles  of  faith  to  the  dignity  of  re- 
ligion. 

Froude  and  his  father  having  started  for  England,  Newman, 
full  of  uncertainty  about  the  future,  returned  for  a  while  to 
Naples.     He  was  repelled  by  its  glitter  and  glare,  which  were 


500      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

in  painful  contrast  with  the  grave  melancholy  of  the  capital. 
"Oh,  what  a  change  from  the  majestic  pensiveness  of  the 
place  I  have  left,  where  the  Church  sits  in  sackcloth  calling 
on  those  that  pass  by  to  say  if  any  one's  sorrow  is  like  her 
sorrow !"  ^  "How  shall  I  describe  the  sadness  with  which  I 
left  the  tombs  of  the  Apostles  ?  Rome,  not  as  a  city,  but  as 
the  scene  of  sacred  history,  has  a  part  of  my  heart,  and  in 
going  away  from  it  I  am  as  if  tearing  it  in  twain."  ^  He 
elaborated  this  latest  opinion  in  order  to  dismiss  his  lingering 
belief  that  in  some  sense  the  Papal  Church  was  recreant. 
The  city  itself,  he  asserted,  had  possessed  but  one  character 
for  two  thousand  five  hundred  years;  of  late  centuries  the 
Christian  Church  had  been  the  slave  of  this  character.  The 
day  drew  near,  however,  when  the  captive  would  be  freed. 
Meanwhile  Rome's  memory  would  ever  be  soothing  to  him ; 
Jerusalem  alone  could  impart  a  more  exalted  comfort.  Thus 
he  sums  up :  "  In  point  of  interest  I  have  seen  nothing  like 
Ithaca,  the  Straits  of  Messina,  and  Egesta  (I  put  aside  Rome), 
and  in  point  of  scenery  nothing  like  Corfu.  As  to  Rome,  I 
cannot  help  talking  of  it"  .  .  .  and  once  more  he  utters  the 
plaintive  cry  —  "  O  Rome,  that  thou  wert  not  Rome  ! "  ^  She 
stood  out  like  a  towering  mountain  on  a  receding  shore  and 
outvied  them  all  in  the  endlessness  and  power  of  her 
appeal. 

He  had  drawn  away  from  his  companions  that  he  might 
see  again  the  towns  and  hill  country  of  Sicily,  and  there  plan 
the  campaign  on  which  he  and  Froude  were  jointly  resolved. 
When  Monsignore  Wiseman  expressed  the  courteous  hope 
that  they  would  visit  him  again,  Newman  replied,  with  great 
gravity,  "We  have  a  work  to  do  in  England."  **  How  seri- 
ously they  took  themselves  and  their  projected  crusade 
appeared  in  their  choice  of  Achilles'  proud  speech  as  the 
motto  for  the  "Lyra  Apostolica":    "They  shall  know  the 

'  "Letters  and  Correspondence"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  338. 

*  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  336.  8  Ibid..  Vol.  I,  p.  344. 

*  "Apologia"  ;   p.  34. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  501 

difference  now  that  I  am  back  again."  ^  The  saying  was  not 
inappropriate  to  the  warfare  that  ensued,  which  was  to  cause 
so  many  wounds,  and  leave  so  many  ugly  scars  behind. 

His  heart  thus  full  of  the  portents  of  this  conflict,  Newman 
fell  ill  of  a  fever,  a  circumstance  which  he  regarded  as  provi- 
dential and  afterwards  repeatedly  described  in  most  solemn 
and  searching  words.  It  marked  another  sovereign  moment 
in  his  life,  appearing  to  him  partly  as  a  judgment  on  his  past 
faults,  and  partly  as  an  assurance  of  heaven's  forgiveness  and 
direction.  "I  felt  God  was  fighting  against  me,  and  felt  at 
last  I  knew  why  —  it  was  for  self-will."  The  sense  of  his 
frailty,  the  peril  of  his  pride,  the  burden  of  his  mission,  and  his 
insufficiency  for  its  discharge,  instigated  a  severe  examination 
of  his  motives.  Nor  was  this  the  result  of  hasty  decision 
induced  by  physical  weakness,  for  he  remanded  the  case  un- 
til he  returned  to  Oxford :  his  illness  occurred  in  May,  1853, 
his  account  of  it  was  not  begun  until  August  31  of  the  year 
following,  and  was  continued  at  intervals  as  late  as  1874. 
"  I  felt  and  kept  saying  to  myself  '  I  have  not  sinned  against 
light,'  and  at  the  one  time  I  had  a  most  consoling  overpower- 
ing thought  of  God's  electing  love,  and  seemed  to  feel  I 
was  His.  .  .  .  Next  day  I  seemed  to  see  more  and  more 
of  my  utter  hollowness,  I  began  to  think  of  all  my  professed 
principles,  and  felt  they  were  mere  intellectual  deductions 
from  one  or  two  admitted  truths.  I  compared  myself  with 
Keble,  and  felt  that  I  was  merely  developing  his,  not  my 
convictions.  .  .  .  Indeed  this  is  how  I  look  on  myself; 
very  much  as  a  pane  of  glass,  which  transmits  heat,  being 
cold  itself.  I  have  a  vivid  perception  of  the  consequences  of 
certain  admitted  principles,  have  a  considerable  intellectual 
capacity  of  drawing  them  out,  have  the  refinement  to  admire 
them,  and  a  rhetorical  or  histrionic  power  to  represent  them ; 
and  having  no  great  {i.e.  no  vivid)  love  of  this  world,  whether 

•Iliad  XVIII,  L.  125.  "TpoTev  S'  cbs  5tj  dripdv  iy<j}  woXd/xoio  irenavnai" 
the  assertion  of  Achilles  to  Thetes  when  he  returned  to  the  fray  that  he  naight 
avenge  himself  on  Hector  for  the  death  of  Patroclus. 


502      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

riches,  honours,  or  anything  else,  and  some  firmness  and 
natural  dignity  of  character,  take  the  profession  of  them  upon 
me,  as  I  might  sing  a  tune  which  I  like  —  loving  the  Truth, 
but  not  possessing  it,  for  I  believe  myself  at  heart  to  be  nearly 
hollow,  i.e.  with  little  love,  little  self-denial.  I  believe  I  have 
some  faith,  that  is  all ;  and,  as  to  my  sins,  they  need  my 
possessing  no  little  amount  of  faith  to  set  against  them  and 
gain  their  remission."  ^ 

Studied  impartiality  was  foreign  to  Newman's  character; 
his  strong  sense  of  what  was  real,  or  of  what  he  wished  to 
believe  was  real,  prevented  him  from  always  doing  justice 
either  to  himself  or  others,  so  that  his  confessions,  like  many 
similar  ones,  were  excessive  in  their  self-depreciation.  As- 
suredly he  was  prepared  for  any  sacrifice  which  would  bene- 
fit his  soul ;  and  despite  his  skeptical  tendencies  faith  was  his 
in  abundance,  whatever  may  be  urged  against  some  objec- 
tives to  which  he  attached  it.  His  love,  however,  was  not 
of  that  quality  which 

"Gives  to  every  power  a  double  power 
Above  their  functions  and  their  oflBces." 

Toward  men,  except  for  his  closest  friends,  it  was  narrow  and 
embarrassed,  and  lacked  the  glow  of  sympathy ;  even  when 
offered  to  God  it  did  not  have  that  restful  response  of  the 
heart  made  perfect  in  the  charity  which  casts  out  fear. 
His  dread  that  essential  truth  was  not  his  has  been  shared 
by  devout  thinkers  whose  conceptions  of  the  truth  and  of 
the  nature  of  its  sanctifying  power  have  widely  differed. 
But  "wisdom  is  sometimes  nearer  when  we  stoop  than 
when  we  soar,"  and  nothing  testified  more  clearly  to  the 
genuineness  of  Newman's  religious  nature,  or  to  the  presence 
of  the  life  of  God  in  him,  than  did  these  admissions  and 
penitences. 

Four-fifths  of   his   published  poems,  if  the  "Dream  of 

'  "Letters  and  Correspondence"  ;   Vol.  I,  pp.  365-366. 


JOHN    HENRY   NEWMAN  503 

Gerontius"  is  excluded,  were  written  during  his  tour  in 
Southern  Europe.  Many  of  them  first  appeared  in  the  Brit- 
ish Magazine  as  lyrical  compositions  of  the  "proper  kind." 
Although  they  were  spontaneous  effusions,  springing  directly 
from  the  thoughts  and  events  of  the  moment,  and  dealing 
with  sentiments  then  present  in  his  heart,  competent  critics 
have  given  them  a  high  place  in  literature,  and  Mr.  R.  H. 
Hutton  asserts  :  "  For  grandeur  of  outline,  purity  of  taste,  and 
radiance  of  total  effect,  I  know  hardly  any  short  poems  in  the 
language  that  equal  them."  ^  Nor  were  they  without  pres- 
ages of  the  future.  Despite  weakness  and  humiliation, 
Newman  felt  that  he  was  being  divinely  led  onward  to  some 
enterprise,  he  knew  not  what,  but  for  which  grace  and  wisdom 
would  be  given.  His  wistful  yet  resigned  longing  to  see 
the  way  before  him,  the  pathetic  but  uncomplaining  en- 
treaties for  guidance  of  an  eager  soul  caught  and  confused  in 
the  darkness,  found  permanent  form  in  the  beautiful  hymn 
which  he  wrote  on  the  orange  boat  that  carried  him  from 
Palermo  to  Marseilles,  when  becalmed  in  the  Straits  of  Boni- 
facio. Familiar  as  the  lyric  is,  it  must  be  transcribed  here, 
since  it  has  long  enjoyed  the  grateful  appreciation  of  a  multi- 
tude of  similarly  seeking  or  sorrowing  ones  who  are  content 
to  wait  until  the  day  breaks  and  the  shadows  flee  away. 

"Lead,  kindly  light,  amid  th'  encircling  gloom, 

Lead  Thou  me  on ; 
The  night  is  dark,  and  I  am  far  from  home ; 

Lead  Thou  me  on ; 
Keep  Thou  my  feet ;  I  do  not  ask  to  see 
The  distant  scene,  —  one  step  enough  for  me. 

"  I  was  not  ever  thus,  nor  prayed  that  Thou 

Shouldst  lead  me  on ; 
I  loved  to  choose  and  see  my  path ;  but  now 

Lead  Thou  me  on. 
I  loved  the  garish  day,  and,  spite  of  fears, 
Pride  ruled  my  will :  remember  not  past  years. 

>  "Cardinal  Newman"  ;   p.  44. 


504      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

"So  long  Thy  power  hath  blest  me,  sure  it  still 

Will  lead  me  on 
O'er  moor  and  fen,  o'er  crag  and  torrent,  till 

The  night  is  gone ; 
And  with  the  morn  those  angel-faces  smile, 
Which  I  have  loved  long  since,  and  lost  awhile." 


CHAPTER    XI 
TRACTARIANISM   AND    ITS   RESULTS 


505 


"Old  customs  and  institutions,  even  of  the  most  trivial  kind,  linger 
long  after  their  origin  has  been  forgotten  and  some  new  justification 
has  been  invented  for  them.  Forms  of  language  and  of  thought  have 
a  similar  vitality,  and  persist  long  after  they  are  recognised  as  cum- 
brous and  misleading.  Every  change  must  originate  with  some  indi- 
vidual who,  by  virtue  of  his  originality,  must  be  in  imperfect  sympathy 
with  the  mass  of  his  contemporaries.  Nor  can  any  man,  however 
versatile  his  intellect,  accommodate  his  mind  easily  or  speedily  to  a 
new  method  and  a  new  order  of  ideas." 

Sir  Leslie  Stephen. 


"  Thou  shalt  leave  each  thing 
Beloved  most  dearly ;  this  is  the  first  shaft 
Shot  from  the  bow  of  exile.     Thou  shalt  prove 
How  salt  the  savour  is  of  other's  bread ; 
How  hard  the  passage  to  descend  and  climb 
By  other's  stairs." 

Dante. 


506 


CHAPTER   XI 

TRACTARIANISM    AND    ITS    RESULTS 

Suppression  of  Irish  bishoprics  —  Abuses  of  Anghcanism  —  Keble's 
sermon  on  National  Apostasy  —  Formation  of  the  Tractarian  party  — 
The  Tracts  and  their  teachings  —  The  sources  of  Anglicanism  —  Cath- 
olicity of  Anglicanism  —  Impeachment  of  Protestantism  —  Pusey's 
part  in  the  movement  —  Hugh  James  Rose  —  William  Palmer  —  Rob- 
ert Isaac  Wilberforce  —  Charles  Marriott  —  Isaac  Williams  —  William 
John  Copeland  —  The  Hampden  and  other  controversies  —  Appear- 
ance of  Tract  Ninety  —  Newman's  trend  toward  Rome  —  Condemna- 
tion of  the  Tract  —  Opposition  of  the  bishops  —  Establishment  of  the 
Jerusalem  bishopric  —  Defeat  of  Williams  and  Pusey  —  Degradation 
of  Ward  —  Essay  on  the  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine  —  New- 
man's secession  —  His  career  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  —  Epi- 
logue. 

I 

Fully  restored  to  health  and  eager  for  the  conflict,  New- 
man returned  to  England  in  July,  1833,  to  find  that  political 
developments  were  helping  to  mature  the  projects  over 
which  he  and  Froude  had  brooded.  The  long-expected 
blow  at  the  Establishment  had  fallen ;  ten  Irish  suflfragan 
bishoprics  and  two  prospective  archiepiscopal  sees  were 
about  to  be  suppressed ;  a  contingency  which  outraged  the 
feelings  of  many  Anglicans,  tended  to  sever  other  friendships 
besides  that  between  Whately  and  Newman,  and  crystallized 
the  action  of  clergymen  who  were  intent  on  a  larger  measure 
of  independence  for  the  Church  in  her  relations  to  the 
State.  They  were  not  agreed  on  this  question  :  advanced 
Churchmen  favored  a  practical  autonomy ;  with  the  rest  it 
was  a  matter  of  convenience  rather  than  conviction.  The 
disestablishment  of  a  State  Church  which  did  not  muster 
more  than  half  the  Protestants  south  of  the  Tweed,  and  an 

507 


508      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

infinitely  less  number  across  the  Irish  Channel,  appealed  to 
the  sense  of  justice  in  many  publicists,  while  to  leaders  such 
as  Keble,  Froude,  and  Newman  the  proposition  savored  of 
disruption  and  anarchy.  The  problem  was  further  compli- 
cated by  the  rapid  growth  of  population  in  the  United  King- 
dom during  the  nineteenth  century,  a  condition  that  inten- 
sified the  hitherto  neglected  demand  for  additional  church 
accommodation,  which  zealous  men  of  various  parties  vigor- 
ously urged.  Friends  and  foes  alike  were  also  disturbed  by 
the  anomalous  inequalities  of  Church  funds.  The  income 
of  bishoprics  ranged  from  thirty-two  thousand  pounds  for 
Canterbury  and  twenty  thousand  pounds  for  Durham  to 
sums  which  were  barely  sufficient  to  cover  expenses.  The 
deaneries  of  Westminster,  Windsor,  and  St.  Paul's  netted 
from  seven  thousand  to  twelve  thousand  pounds  each,  and 
a  number  of  rectories  from  five  thousand  to  ten  thousand 
pounds.  At  the  other  extreme  the  poorer  clergy  were  mis- 
erably paid,  not  less  than  four  thousand  of  the  livings  in 
England  and  Wales  having  a  stipend  under  one  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds  a  year.  Large  numbers  of  these  fell  be- 
low fifty  pounds,  and  as  a  consequence  parochial  work  was 
pauperized.  One  third  of  the  clergy  were  pluralists,  some 
holding  as  many  as  five  benefices.  The  law  that  required 
incumbents  to  reside  in  their  parishes  was  openly  violated, 
canons  and  rectors  living  where  they  chose  and  leaving  their 
duties  to  curates  on  a  starvation  wage.  One  clergyman 
holding  two  rectories  bringing  in  twelve  hundred  poimds 
was  said  to  have  paid  eighty-four  pounds  for  the  work  done 
in  both.  Bishop  Sparke  of  Ely,  his  son,  and  his  son-in-law 
jointly  received  annually  over  thirty  thousand  pounds  of 
Church  moneys.  Archbishop  Moore  is  reputed  to  have 
died  a  millionaire,  and  that  mild  but  rapacious  prelate. 
Archbishop  Manners  Sutton,  presented  seven  of  his  relatives 
to    sixteen    benefices   besides    several   cathedral   dignities.^ 

>  F.  W.  Cornish:    "The  English  Church  in  the  Nineteenth  Century"; 
Vol.  I,  pp.  102-109. 


JOHN    HENRY   NEWMAN  509 

This  nepotism  and  greed  became  a  scandal,  and  in  1831 
a  Royal  Commission  was  appointed  to  report  upon  its 
causes  and  consider  what  remedies  should  be  adopted. 
Parliamentary  control  was  responsible  for  such  rank,' 
abuses :  it  now  endeavored  to  abolish  them  by  legislation.! 
The  long-continued  evil  and  their  helplessness  to  eradicate 
it  evoked  from  indignant  hearts  the  query,  Has  the  Church 
no  voice  in  her  own  affairs  ?  Evangelicals  were  not  partic- 
ularly concerned  to  reply ;  as  a  party  they  had  taken  little 
interest  in  ecclesiastical  changes,  so  long  as  the  status  quo 
favored  or  at  least  did  not  interfere  with  their  doctrinal 
preferences.  But  Oxford  inhaled  an  atmosphere  which  made 
it  distrustful  of  all  reforms  and  especially  of  those  which 
affected  the  Church  or  the  Crown.  Its  strictest  loyalties 
centered  around  the  former;  idealized  as  the  fond  mother, 
who  had  inspired  the  best  creations  of  the  past,  and  who 
maintained  the  highest  and  widest  possible  relations  with 
religion,  learning,  art,  architecture;  while  the  Crown  was 
revered  as  the  fountain  of  national  honor  and  security. 
Both  were  so  interdependent  that  neither  could  be  touched 
without  weakening  the  other,  and  the  marauding  hand  that 
was  raised  against  them  must  be  prompted  by  ignorance, 
impiety,  or  treason.  The  misguided  or  deliberate  enemies 
of  settled  government  who  went  about  to  suppress  bishoprics 
antedating  the  State  itself,  and  to  confiscate  or  redistribute 
endowments  derived  from  the  gifts  of  pious  founders,  would 
presently,  without  doubt,  find  in  University  affairs  the  next 
object  of  their  unlicensed  interference.  Such  sentiments 
were  current,  not  only  in  Oxford,  but  in  a  thousand  town  and 
country  parsonages  throughout  the  land.  They  found  a 
historic  expression  in  John  Keble,  who,  despite  his  disinclina- 
tion to  public  controversy,  emerged  from  seclusion,  and 
challenged  parliament  and  the  nation  in  behalf  of  the  rights 
and  liberties  of  Anglicanism.  He  believed  that  the  Establish- 
ment, although  in  dire  need  of  purification,  was  not  only  a 
formal  recognition  of  religion  by  the  State,  but  its  bulwark 


510      THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

against  liberalism  and  moral  degeneracy  —  conditions  which 
he  identified  as  cause  and  effect.  After  repeatedly  discuss- 
ing these  and  kindred  themes  in  the  Common  Room  at 
Oriel,  Keble  and  his  friends  pledged  themselves  to  write  and 
speak  for  the  Church.  Their  situation  was  somewhat  incon- 
sistent, inasmuch  as  they  conceived  their  communion  to  be  a 
divine  ordination,  and  esteemed  its  spiritualities  above  every- 
thing else,  yet  these  were  of  necessity  closely  associated  with 
the  temporal  authority  which  nominated  deans  and  bishops, 
and  regulated  doctrine  and  discipline.  Moreover,  her  union 
with  the  State  made  the  Church  the  ally  of  the  powerful 
and  the  rich.  And  for  the  Tractarians  to  company  with 
these,  while  condemning  others  who  ardently  desired  her  re- 
generation as  anti-Christian  in  their  policy,  involved  the 
definition  of  what  Christianity  really  was  and  how  its  teach- 
ings affected  the  entire  question. 

This  Keble  undertook  to  some  extent  in  his  Oxford  Assize 
sermon,  delivered  on  Lord's  Day,  July  14,  1833.  He  felt 
that  the  duty  and  the  hour  for  its  discharge  had  been  granted 
him,  and  he  used  the  opportunity  to  the  full  in  his  discourse, 
entitled  "National  Apostasy."  To  his  utterance  Newman 
attributed  the  actual  origin  of  Tractarianism,  saying  that 
he  had  ever  considered  and  kept  the  day  as  the  start  of 
the  religious  movement  of  1833.  A  superficial  view  has 
ascribed  Keble's  impeachment  to  the  suppression  of  the 
^  Irish  bishoprics,  but  actually  its  main  causes  were  to  be 
found  in  the  spiritual  dearth  of  Anglicanism,  which  enabled 
unscrupulous  politicians,  as  he  deemed  them,  to  take  advan- 
tage of  the  general  weakness.  Further,  he  believed  that 
faith  and  order  were  jeopardized  when  the  episcopate  was 
reduced  in  numbers  or  in  authority  by  civil  decrees.  On 
this  matter  he  and  his  colleagues  were  sincere,  inexorable, 
and  imited.  The  consideration  that  no  changes  in  ecclesi- 
astical methods  could  permanently  impair  the  vitality  and 
energy  of  the  New  Testament  Evangel  had  no  weight  with 
clerics  who  were  swayed  by  the  influences,  good  or  bad,  of 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN  511 

their  unique  surroundings.  They  invested  their  sacerdotal 
claims  with  the  sanctity  of  an  absolute  revelation,  and  held 
that  the  totality  of  God's  working  force  in  the  world  was, 
in  essence,  a  priestly  possession.  The  ability  to  see  every 
side  of  a  question,  so  necessary  for  comprehensive  and  safe  \  n 
conclusions,  was  not  a  gift  of  the  Tractarians,  yet  their  nar-  j  j 
rowness  of  outlook  was  not  due  to  any  conscious  paltering  '  ' 
with  the  facts,  but  to  certain  mental  and  moral  limitations. 
That  all  men  are  more  or  less  the  victims  of  these  limita- 
tions is  a  truism  that  should  restrain  impatience  at  what 
naturally  seems  the  astonishing  infatuation  of  the  Tracta- 
rians, and  Keble's  observations  can  be  judged  accordingly. 
Churchmen,  said  the  preacher,  and  by  this  he  meant 
Anglicans,  had  hitherto  taken  it  for  granted  that  England 
"  had  for  centuries  acknowledged,  as  an  essential  part  of  her 
theory  of  government,  that,  as  a  Christian  nation,  she  Is  also 
a  part  of  Christ's  Church,  and  bound  in  all  her  legislation 
and  policy  by  the  fundamental  laws  of  that  Church."  This 
proposition  practically  asserted  that  Anglicans  should  dic- 
tate the  laws  of  England,  and  it  could  have  been  extended 
with  equal  legitimacy  to  the  Presbyterianism  established  in 
Scotland.  "  When  a  government  and  people,  so  constituted," 
he  added,  "threw  off  the  restraint  which  in  many  respects 
such  a  principle  would  impose  upon  them,  nay,  disavowed 
the  principle  itself,"  such  conduct  was  a  "direct  disavowal 
of  the  sovereignty  of  God.  If  it  be  true  that  such  enactments 
are  forced  on  the  legislature  by  public  opinion,  is  Apostasy 
too  hard  a  word  to  describe  the  temper  of  such  a  nation?" 
These  extracts  present  the  substance  of  a  remonstrance  con- 
ceived in  the  strictest  partisanship,  yet  addressed  to  all 
England.  Its  language  disclosed  no  careful  study  of  those 
stages  in  national  evolution  which  had  rendered  unavoidable 
the  changes  painfully  resented  by  Keble.  It  manifested 
a  temper  belonging  to  the  genial  days  of  the  Act  of  Uniform- 
ity rather  than  the  nineteenth  century.  Community  of  in- 
terest and  sympathy,  which  is  the  root  of  social  justice,  was 


512      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

destroyed  by  such  extraordinary  prejudices.  Contemptu- 
ous toward  that  excellent  and  persistent  spirit  operating  in 
human  progress,  the  strength  of  which  no  circumstances, 
however  adverse,  and  no  creed,  however  inflexible,  can 
permanently  overcome,  Keble  and  his  disciples  refused  to 
credit  their  generation  with  any  good  thing,  and  mourned 
over  its  shortcomings  with  a  mistaken  grief.  Some  among 
them  were  inordinately  lachrymose :  deprived  of  domestic 
joys  and  feeding  on  the  despair  of  their  own  hearts,  they 
were  wont  to  display  an  ill-regulated  emotion  over  events 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  tears  expended  on  them. 

"No  matter  where ;  of  comfort  no  man  speak : 
Let's  talk  of  graves,  of  worms  and  epitaphs ; 
Make  dust  our  paper,  and  with  raining  eyes 
Write  sorrow  on  the  bosom  of  the  earth." 

They  applied  themselves  to  their  theories  with  unswerving 
vigor,  and  regarded  them  as  living  verities,  never  to  be 
doubted,  always  to  be  obeyed,  whatever  the  consequences. 
History  is  plentiful  in  similar  examples  showing  how  merci- 
less and  unjust  theories  can  be :  how  they  can  cut  like  a 
scythe,  separating  men  and  nations,  once  they  are  allowed 
to  obsess  the  mind  and  to  become  the  watchwords  of  reli- 
gious or  political  cliques. 

Twelve  days  after  Keble's  sermon  was  preached,  and  seven- 
teen after  Newman's  return  from  the  continent,  Hugh 
James  Rose  convened  a  gathering  at  his  rectory  of  Hadleigh 
in  Suffolk,  to  consider  the  state  of  the  Church  and  what 
measures  should  be  adopted  for  its  betterment.  William 
Palmer,  Arthur  Philip  Perceval,  and  Hurrell  Froude  accepted 
the  invitation ;  Keble  and  Newman,  though  absent,  actively 
cooperated  with  the  rest.  "The  meeting  was  the  first 
attempt  to  combine  for  the  preservation  of  great  principles," 
remarked  Palmer ;  but  small  in  numbers  though  it  was,  its 
members  were  not  agreed,  and  finally  they  adjourned  to  Ox- 
ford.    Those  who  maintained  that  sacred  beliefs  and  ordi- 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  513 

nances  were  not  subject  to  fluctuations  of  ideas,  or  to  scientific, 
economic,  and  political  conditions,  and  that  apart  from 
hierarchical  authority  there  could  be  nothing  but  confusion 
and  loss,  encountered  a  show  of  resistance  from  the  more 
cautious  brethren.  Nevertheless,  "the  Hadleigh  conspir- 
acy," as  Froude  and  his  foes  alike  termed  it,  cleared  the  way 
for  simultaneous  action,  and  Rose  and  his  companions  after- 
wards spoke  of  themselves  as  "the  Society."  During  the 
long  vacation  of  1833  they  met  again  at  Oriel,  and  by  the 
third  of  September  or  thereabouts,  Newman  had  put  forth 
the  first  three  in  the  series  of  "Tracts  for  the  Times."  ^ 

Resentment  against  modern  thought  and  a  sense  of 
its  danger  to  religion  were  their  main  burden.  This 
danger  was  manifested  in  the  secularization  of  the  Church 
and  the  proposed  alteration  of  the  Prayer  Book  in  a  latitu- 
dinarian  sense  by  authority  of  parliament.  Existing  heresies 
and  infidelities  were  to  be  overcome  by  archaic  shibboleths 
duly  refurbished  ;  the  doctrines  of  apostolical  succession  and 
sacramental  grace,  taking  the  place  of  evangelical  theories  of 
conversion  by  means  of  prayer  and  preaching,  were  trusted 
to  put  to  confusion  enemies  within  and  without  the  Church, 
which,  purged  of  the  one  and  defended  from  the  other, 
would  return  to  her  ancient  beliefs  and  renew  her  forgotten 
services. 

Newman's  first  Tract,  respectfully  addressed  to  his 
brethren  in  the  sacred  ministry,  struck  this  note  at  once. 
It  was  an  imperative  summons  to  forsake  ungodliness,  and 
to  set  the  example  of  unworldly  men  taking  their  solemn 
office  seriously  and  sacrificially.  They  were  exhorted  not 
to  rest  upon  that  secular  respectability,  or  cultivation,  or 
polish,  or  learning,  or  rank  which  gave  them  a  hearing 
with  the  many;  and  to  have  done  forever  with  the  false 
notion  that  present  palpable  usefulness,  producible  results, 
acceptableness   to   the   flock   are    indubitable   evidences   of 

1  Authorities  differ  as  to  this  date ;  Dean  Burgon  gives  September  3d  ; 
Dean  Church,  September  9th ;  Wilfred  Ward,  "  the  December  following." 

2l 


514      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

divine  approval.  In  the  last  day,  Scripture  warns  us,  the 
recital  of  such  proofs  will  in  many  instances  be  met  by 
the  stern  sentence,  "Depart  from  me,  for  I  never  knew  you." 
The  Tract  was  as  intentionally  provocative  as  Keble's 
sermon,  and  also  as  exclusive  and  uncompromising.  It  as- 
sailed whatever  was  unworthy  and  much  that  was  customary 
in  the  Church,  and  boldly  exalted  the  ages  of  intolerance  and 
asceticism.  This  backward  gaze  on  denser  times  was  a  pre- 
vailing trait  in  the  Tractarians.  A  surprising  passage  occurs 
in  one  of  Keble's  homilies,  entitled  "The  Religion  of  the 
Day,"  which  would  have  made  an  appropriate  motto  for  his 
cause,  and  wherein  he  declares  that  it  would  be  a  gain  to 
England  "were  it  vastly  more  superstitious,  more  bigoted, 
more  gloomy,  more  fierce  in  its  religion,  than  at  present  it 
shows  itself  to  be." 

The  second  Tract  applied  the  principles  of  the  first  to 
practical  Church  politics.  Was  the  State  the  Church? 
Had  the  State  the  right  to  create  a  clergy,  to  regulate  dio- 
ceses, to  determine  in  any  way  the  propaganda  of  the 
Church  ?  The  answer  did  not  tremble ;  it  was  emphatic, 
even  defiant.  The  Holy  Catholic  Church  was  a  living 
reality,  placed  in  the  Creed  as  an  article  of  faith  immedi- 
ately after  the  belief  in  the  Holy  Ghost ;  Apostolic,  because 
founded  by  the  Apostles ;  Catholic,  because  it  knew  no 
limitation  of  race ;  Visible,  in  its  divinely  instituted  orders 
of  bishops,  priests,  and  deacons;  and  essentially  above  all 
civil  authority  in  matters  of  doctrine  and  ritual.  Further- 
more, communion  with  the  Church,  thus  defined,  was 
"generally  necessary  to  salvation  in  the  case  of  those  who 
could  obtain  it."  In  short,  the  Tract  was  a  declaration  of 
war  against  the  right  of  parliament  to  any  voice  in  religious 
matters,  and  against  the  Evangelical  and  Broad  sections  of 
Anglicanism.  "I  stand  amazed,"  wrote  Arnold  to  Pusey, 
"at  some  apparent  efforts  in  this  Protestant  Church  to  set 
up  the  idol  of  tradition." 

In   the   third    Tract  Newman  deplored   a   current   pro- 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  515 

posal  to  revise  the  liturgy.  "In  a  day  like  this,"  he 
wrote,  "there  are  but  two  sides,  zeal  and  persecution,  the 
Church  and  the  world ;  and  those  who  attempt  to  occupy 
the  ground  between  them  at  best  will  lose  their  labour, 
but  probably  will  be  drawn  back  to  the  latter.  Be  practical, 
I  respectfully  urge  you."  Any  changes  in  the  liturgy 
would  lead,  he  felt,  to  controversy  and  unbelief ;  the  way 
would  be  opened  to  objectors  who  disliked  its  teaching 
rather  than  its  form  to  tamper  with  both. 

During  1834  twenty  Tracts  were  published,  nine  of  them 
being  from  Newman's  pen.  The  theology  and  practice  of 
the  eighteenth  century  were  discarded  and  denounced,  and 
the  clergy  were  admonished  to  betake  themselves  to  the 
Carolinian  divines  and  to  their  instructors,  the  early  Fathers. 
In  November  of  the  same  year  the  first  volume  of  Tracts, 
forty-seven  in  number,  was  published,  "with  the  object 
of  contributing  something  towards  the  practical  revival  of 
doctrines,  which,  although  held  by  the  great  divines  of  our 
Church,  at  present  have  become  obsolete  with  the  majority 
of  her  members,  and  are  withdrawn  from  public  view  even 
by  the  more  learned  and  orthodox  few  who  still  adhere  to 
them."  At  intervals  five  more  volumes  appeared.  In 
the  preface  to  the  third  of  these,  issued  in  1836,  the  editors, 
referring  to  the  first  Tracts,  remarked  that  they  "were 
written  with  the  hope  of  rousing  members  of  our  Church  to 
comprehend  her  alarming  position  .  .  . ;  as  a  man  might 
give  notice  of  a  fire  or  an  inundation,  to  startle  all  who 
heard  him  ...  to  infuse  seriousness  into  the  indifferent. 
.  .  .  Now,  however,  discussion  became  more  seasonable 
than  the  simple  statements  of  doctrine  with  which  the  series 
began ;   and  their  character  accordingly  changed." 

Simultaneously  with  the  Tracts  other  books  were  sent 
forth  to  support  the  novel  theories,  in  accordance  with 
Newman's  plan  of  giving  them  a  wide  publicity.  His  own 
works  on  "The  Prophetical  Office  of  the  Church,"  on  "The 
Arians,"  already  noticed,  and  also  on  "  Justification  "  appeared 


516     THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

in  1837  and  1838.  In  the  latter  year  the  first  volume 
of  the  "Library  of  the  Fathers,"  of  which  Charles 
Marriott  became  managing  editor,  was  published,  followed 
by  fifty  volumes  in  succeeding  years,  the  object  being 
to  furnish  the  clergy  with  the  teaching  of  the  Church 
before  the  division  between  East  and  West.  About  the 
same  time  another  series  was  issued,  the  "  Library  of  Anglo- 
Catholic  Theology,"  comprising  the  writings  of  notable 
English  divines  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries. 
In  1839  Isaac  Williams,  of  whom  we  shall  hear  again, 
commenced  a  series  of  "Plain  Sermons  by  Contributors  to 
the  Tracts  for  the  Times  "  for  the  purpose  of  heartening  the 
fearful  and  guiding  the  perplexed.  In  the  periodical  press 
the  Movement  was  ably  and  vigorously  represented  by  the 
British  Critic  and  by  its  successor  the  Christian  Re- 
membrancer. Among  others  who  contributed  to  the  Tracts 
were  Keble,  his  brother  Thomas,  Benjamin  Harrison,  George 
Bowden,  Hurrell  Froude,  Isaac  Williams,  Alfred  Menzies, 
and  Pusey.  Despite  Newman's  deprecation  of  corporate 
effort,  and  his  avowal  that  no  great  achievement  was 
ever  wrought  by  a  system ;  whereas  systems,  on  the  con- 
trary, arose  out  of  individual  energy.  Palmer  insisted  on 
further  organization ;  the  laymen  were  enlisted,  and  an  ad- 
dress of  protestation  was  signed  by  eight  thousand  Angli- 
cans and  presented  to  the  Primate, 
t/  These  proceedings  came  none  too  soon ;  the  third  decade 
of  the  nineteenth  century  found  the  Established  Church 
in  large  measure  what  she  had  been  when  she  rejected  the 
Wesleys  and  their  mission.  She  was  still  slumbering  and 
sleeping  when  the  days  of  trouble  came  upon  her.  "  Nothing, 
as  it  seems  to  me,"  Dr.  Arnold  confessed  in  1833,  "can  save 
the  Church  but  union  with  the  Dissenters;  now  that  they 
are  leagued  with  the  Anti-Christian  party,  and  no  merely 
internal  reforms  will  satisfy  them."  ^  This  widespread 
hostility,   followed,   as  it  was,   by  the  publication  of  the 

»  Dean  Stanley  :    "Life  of  Arnold"  ;   Vol.  I,  pp.  326-345. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  517 

Tracts,  alarmed  the  officials  both  of  Church  and  State; 
but  they  were  totally  unprepared  to  meet  the  emergency, 
and  behaved  as  men  surprised  in  a  moment  of  fictitious 
security.  Lulled  to  somnolence  by  their  detachment  from 
the  clergy  and  the  people,  the  bishops  at  last  awoke  to  the 
possibility  of  a  collapse  largely  due  to  their  prolonged  neglect 
and  indifference.  Even  when  aroused,  some  were  content 
to  indulge  the  luxury  of  moral  indignation  against  Erastian 
mismanagement,  and  at  the  same  time  to  insist  that  the 
Church  should  continue  to  enjoy  the  material  advantages 
she  derived  from  State  supervision.  But  to  the  majority  of 
the  bishops  and  to  all  the  Evangelicals,  the  Tracts  seemed 
glaringly  inconsistent  with  the  doctrine  and  discipline  of  the 
Church ;  an  act  of  betrayal  solemnly  perpetrated  by  grave 
and  reverend  men,  who  violated  the  sacredness  of  their 
calling  and  the  legitimate  construction  of  the  Rubrics  and 
the  Articles. 

In  reality,  Tractarianism  was  a  development  of  the  free- 
dom which  Anglicanism  obtained  at  the  Reformation,  when 
Europe  was  divided  into  two  camps,  and  scholars  and 
Humanists  became  persecutors  and  martyrs.  In  the  long 
interval  that  had  elapsed,  the  creative  source  of  the  theologi- 
cal opinions  enunciated  by  Newman  and  his  companions 
had  been  forgotten.  The  Semitic  mind,  which  produced 
the  New  Testament;  the  Hellenistic,  which  produced 
ecumenical  dogma;  the  Imperialistic,  which  produced  the 
Papal  rule ;  the  Feudal,  which  produced  medieval  theories 
of  ecclesiastical  governance ;  the  National,  which  produced 
Protestantism  —  were  all  involved  in  the  chaos  of  that  era 
out  of  which  the  Establishment  arose  under  the  suprem- 
acy of  Henry  VIII.  How  much  self-governance  was  left  to 
Anglicanism  had  long  been  disputed.  The  compact  between 
Church  and  Crown,  if  such  it  was,  at  any  rate  presumed 
that  the  Church  had  power  to  make  it.  Precisely  what  it 
signified,  and  the  interpretations  derived  from  its  statements, 
grants  and  reservations,  became  an  acute  problem  which  dis- 


518      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

tressed  and  distorted  the  thoughts  of  Churchmen.  The 
Tractarians  contended  that  the  Church  did  not  concede,  nor 
was  she  asked  to  concede,  that  her  doctrine  should  be  deter- 
mined or  her  laws  administered  by  other  than  her  own  clergy. 
Original  powers  of  direction  and  guidance  were  carefully 
distinguished  from  those  relating  to  constraint  and  correc- 
tion. But  the  distinction  was  too  fragile  to  withstand  the 
rough  usage  of  revolutionary  politics.  The  sudden  appro- 
priation to  themselves  of  the  spiritual  authority  hitherto 
vested  in  the  Papacy  aroused  acrimonious  discussion  among 
its  new  possessors.  During  the  Tudor  and  Stuart  periods 
many  valuable  prerogatives  were  left  lying  loose  which  des- 
potic rulers  and  ambitious  statesmen  were  quick  to  use  for 
their  own  ends.  Neo- Anglicans  denied  the  plea  that  the 
Holy  See  was  until  the  sixteenth  century  both  the  source  and 
center  of  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  and  the  supreme  judge 
of  doctrine.  Following  Laud,  Andrewes,  Ken,  Wilson,  and 
Hammond,  they  went  behind  the  transfer  of  headship 
from  the  Pope  to  the  monarch ;  behind  the  controversies  and 
schisms  which  succeeded  the  corruptions  of  the  period ; 
and  found  their  basis  for  the  Prayer  Book,  its  liturgies 
and  forms  of  ordination,  in  the  purer  and  more  uni- 
versal faith  and  practice  which  flourished  from  the  eleventh 
to  the  thirteenth  centuries.  The  ancient  jurisdiction  of 
that  era,  they  argued,  was  restored  at  the  Reformation, 
without  vital  injury  to  the  continuity  and  integrity  of  the 
Anglican  Church.  Mr.  Gladstone  summed  up  the  contro- 
versy as  follows :  "  I  contend  that  the  Crown  did  not  claim 
by  statute,  either  to  be  of  right,  or  to  become  by  convention, 
the  source  of  that  kind  of  action,  which  was  committed  by 
the  Saviour  to  the  Apostolic  Church,  whether  for  the  enact- 
ment of  laws,  or  for  the  administration  of  its  discipline; 
but  the  claim  was,  that  all  the  canons  of  the  Church,  and  all 
its  judicial  proceedings,  inasmuch  as  they  were  to  form  parts 
respectively  of  the  laws  and  of  the  legal  administration  of 
justice  in  the  kingdom,  should  run  only  with  the  assent  and 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  519 

sanction  of  the  Crown.  They  were  to  carry  with  them  a 
double  force  —  a  force  of  coercion,  visible  and  palpable ;  a 
force  addressed  to  conscience,  neither  visible  nor  palpable, 
and  in  its  nature  only  capable  of  being  inwardly  appre- 
ciated." ^  Without  commenting  on  this  rather  labored  dis- 
crimination between  a  force  of  coercion  and  one  addressed 
to  conscience,  it  is  enough  to  add  that  Mr.  Gladstone  him- 
self admitted  that  while,  according  to  the  spirit  and  letter 
of  the  law,  such  appear  to  be  the  limits  of  the  royal  su- 
premacy relative  to  the  legislative  action  of  the  Church,  in 
other  branches  it  goes  farther,  and  that  the  claim  of  the 
Crown  to  determine  at  any  point  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Church  may  also  be  construed  to  mean  that  the  Crown  is 
the  ultimate  source  of  jurisdiction  of  whatever  kind.^  When 
Henry  VIII  delivered  the  Church  from  the  bonds  of  Rome, 
he  did  not  free  her;  he  merely  substituted  the  sole  control 
of  the  Crown  for  the  dual  authority  hitherto  exercised  by 
the  Pope  and  the  monarch. 

These  scattered  hints  may  serve  to  convey  some  idea 
of  the  Tractarian  position,  the  validity  of  which  is 
repudiated  by  able  advocates  of  opposing  schools.  Cer- 
tainly her  connection  with  the  State,  and  the  compromises 
forced  upon  her  by  national  and  religious  necessities, 
enabled  the  English  Church  to  shelter  many  shades  and 
varieties  of  mind  and  opinion.  Whatever  has  been  her 
bearing  toward  some  outgrowths  of  Puritanism,  and  in 
this  she  has  little  on  which  to  look  with  equanimity, 
within  her  own  borders  she  has  preserved  a  commen- 
dable breadth.  By  resisting  the  swashbucklers  of  peculiar 
orthodoxies,  who  sought  to  stereotype  creeds  and  forms  and 
thus  sever  the  Church  from  the  life  of  the  nation,  she  has 
saved  herself  from  disintegration  and  conferred  great  benefits 
on  her  members.     Her  forces  have  not  always  been  rightly 

*  "Remarks  on  the  Royal  Supremacy,  as  it  is  Defined  by  Reason,  History, 
and  the  Constitution";  Guardian,  July  10,  1850. 

*  Dean  Church :  "Occasional  Papers"  ;  pp.  8-9. 


520      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

directed,  yet,  at  intervals,  leaders  have  appeared  who  refused 
to  fall  back  from  ever-widening  horizons  upon  circumscribed 
areas.  An  organization  which  included  Hooker,  Thirlwall, 
Maurice,  Robertson  of  Brighton,  Stanley,  Jowett,  and 
Tait,  together  with  Laud,  Law,  Keble,  Froude,  Pusey, 
Church,  and  Liddon,  can  be  said  in  this  respect  to  have 
been  truly  catholic.  Cynical  observers  have  criticized  the 
divisions  which  separated  these  eminent  men,  and  out- 
siders entirely  friendly  to  Anglicanism  have  remarked  with 
justice,  that  apart  from  its  alliance  with  the  State,  it  would 
probably  fall  asunder  into  contending  sects.  The  fact 
remains,  however,  that  its  wisest  sons,  although  separated 
in  some  beliefs,  have  generally  been  faithful  Churchmen 
who  were  not  blind  to  their  inheritance  or  to  the 
sacrifices  of  its  past  and  the  hope  of  its  present  and 
future.  Neither  Tractarians,  Evangelicals,  nor  Broad 
Churchmen  have  always  rightly  conceived  and  used  their 
freedom,  but  this  is  not  a  suflBcient  reason  for  its  withdrawal, 
nor  for  the  uniformity  which  would  deaden,  if  not  destroy, 
liberty  of  conscience  and  opinion.  Upon  that  liberty  as  a 
sure  foundation  rests  the  strength  of  a  Church  which 
aspires  to  be  truly  national ;  in  which  different  types  of 
character  and  temperament  have  found  a  habitation  for 
Christian  scholarship,  and  a  center  for  worship  and  service. 
This  digression  helps  to  indicate  the  obstacles  the  Trac- 
tarians encountered,  in  which  the  first  question  confronting 
them  was,  "  What  is  the  Church  as  spoken  of  in  England  ? 
Is  it  the  Church  of  Christ?"  Hooker,  whose  conclusions 
were  the  outcome  of  a  nobly  temperate  mind,  had  defined 
it  as  the  nation,  viewed  in  its  entirety,  and  Arnold 
simply  echoed  his  definition.  The  Nonconformists  declared 
that  it  was  the  aggregate  of  separate  congregations,  locally 
independent  and  in  fellowship  one  with  another.  Erastian 
lawyers  and  politicians  regarded  it  as  the  creation  of  the 
State,  an  establishment  by  law  under  parliamentary  legis- 
lation and  control.     Roman  Catholics  asserted  that  it  was 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  521 

not,  in  any  apostolic  and  catholic  sense,  a  Church  at  all, 
but  a  sectarian  schism,  cut  off  from  communion  with  the 
fountain  of  grace  and  spiritual  authority,  and  hampered 
by  an  ignominious  history  of  subservience  to  the  Crown. 
Whately's  aflBrmation,  already  quoted,  advanced  the  prop- 
osition that  it  was  a  divine  religious  society,  distinct  in 
its  attributes  from  any  other.  Froude  and  then  Newman 
adopted  and  heightened  this  theory,  and  a  majority  of  the 
Tractarians  followed  suit,  teaching  that  the  Anglican  Church 
was  the  one  historic  uninterrupted  ecclesia,  than  which 
there  could  be  no  other  in  England.^  While  this  doctrine 
defied  Erastianism,  it  left  the  internal  life  and  teaching  of 
the  Church  in  need  of  further  elucidation,  which  the  Tracts 
endeavored  to  supply. 

Although  described  by  Dean  Church  as  "clear,  brief, 
stern  appeals  to  conscience  and  reason ;  sparing  of  words, 
utterly  without  rhetoric,  intense  in  purpose;  the  sharp, 
rapid  utterances  of  men  in  pain  and  danger  and  pressing 
emergency,"  ^  they  varied  in  quality,  and  as  literature  are 
now  deservedly  forgotten.  Some,  indeed,  were  meager  and 
desultory,  others  consisted  of  quotations  from  the  Fathers, 
or  did  not  rise  above  the  level  of  dogmatic  assertion,  and 
while  those  which  came  from  Newman's  pen  stood  out  in 
favorable  contrast  to  the  rest,  little  that  he  contributed 
enhanced  his  reputation.  Pusey's  cooperation  supplied  a 
needed  element  of  scholarship,  and  what  he  wrote  was 
afterwards  considerably  expanded.  A  spirit  of  chiding  and 
rebuke  breathed  in  the  words  of  these  leaders,  which  seemed 
to  burn  with  the  heat  of  their  compression.  They  were 
exasperated  beyond  endurance  by  the  lassitude  and  delusive 
respectability  which  deadened  the  enthusiasm  and  spirit  of 
the  Church.  She  had  become  the  sanctuary  of  the  "  Gigman- 
ity"  and  "Philistinism"  against  which  Carlyle  and  Matthew 
Arnold  railed,  and  nourished  within  her  borders  the  sort  of 

'  Dean  Church :  "The  Oxford  Movement"  ;  p.  51. 
'Ibid.;  p.  110. 


522     THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

gentlemen,  lay  and  clerical,  who  worshiped  the  deductions 
of  their  own  reason  and  the  creations  of  their  own  fancy ,^ 
but  who,  nevertheless,  were  warmly  attached  to  the  Estab- 
lishment, a  fact  which  Froude  and  Newman  did  not  sujBB- 
ciently  recognize.  Nor  were  the  times  as  ready  for  radical 
changes  as  the  Tractarians  imagined.  The  University  and 
the  nation  were  widely  separated  in  thought  and  feeling; 
the  trimming  diplomacy  of  the  majority,  and  the  fact  that 
the  Church  always  sailed  a  little  behind  the  age,  pleased  the 
conservatism  of  those  who  were  free  from  the  dread  that 
she  would  be  stranded  upon  the  shoals  of  liberalism.  Much 
that  the  Tractarians  addressed  to  the  nation  sounded  strange, 
shifty,  and  unsubstantial.  The  apostolic  origin  and  catholic 
nature  of  Anglicanism  as  a  branch  of  the  one  visible  Church 
had  no  special  charm  for  that  generation.  A  certain  bishop 
declared  that  he  was  not  sure  in  what  manner  his  office  was 
derived;  others  denounced  the  sacerdotalism  which  glori- 
fied them  as  chief  pastors.  Undismayed,  however,  the 
Neo-Anglicans  inculcated  their  notions  on  the  alleged 
unbroken  apostolic  rights  of  the  priesthood,  and  the  re- 
generating sacraments.  Notwithstanding  Dean  Church's 
comment  that  they  appealed  to  the  intellect,  they  seldom 
discussed  religion  from  the  standpoint  of  reason  or  from 
that  of  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  comparative 
study  of  the  various  forms  Christianity  has  assumed  in 
the  course  of  its  philosophical  speculations.  Nor  did 
they  extricate  themselves  from  a  mass  of  intricate  details 
to  rise  to  large  and  luminous  generalizations.  Apart 
from  Pusey,  and  perhaps  Newman,  none  of  them  was 
specially  distinguished  as  an  exponent  of  historical  and  con- 
structive theology.  Solidity  and  depth  of  thought  were  as 
absent  as  massive  and  inspiring  eloquence,  or  as  the  gener- 
ous culture  which  could  appreciate  the  best  in  other  com- 
munions. When  they  proceeded  to  accuse  the  common 
source  from  which  all  alike  derived,  by  asseverating  that  there 

*  Newman  :    "Idea  of  a  University"  ;   p.  211. 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  523 

were  grievous  errors  and  structural  defects  in  Protestantism, 
and  that  the  Reformation  was  by  no  means  as  impeccable 
in  principle  or  practice  as  was  generally  supposed,  they  not 
only  shocked  the  sensibilities  of  those  fellow-countrymen  who 
had  long  looked  upon  the  Papacy  with  unmitigated  aversion, 
but  also  aroused  their  permanent  distrust.  The  further 
statement  that  the  Establishment  had  many  features  in 
common  with  those  Churches  which  rested  their  claims  on 
apostolic  succession  evoked  an  indignant  challenge  from  men 
of  divergent  views,  who  charged  the  Tractarians  with  being 
guilty  of  intellectual  immorality. 

Undoubtedly  there  were  among  them  spirits  as  pure  and  ^ 
devoted  to  truth  as  any  who  have  wrought  in  the  arid 
region  of  religious  polemics.  But  some  betrayed  a  de- 
cided tendency  towards  decorated  language,  word-juggling, 
and  beguiling  sophistry,  a  sort  of  verbal  craft  which  was  a 
poor  substitute  for  direct  speech.  They  approached  their 
unusual  theories  with  the  vanity  of  inexperience  and  laid 
upon  them  burdens  they  could  not  sustain.  An  immovable 
preference  for  reality,  at  whatever  cost,  was  hard  to  main- 
tain in  an  environment  agitated  by  disputes  and  full 
of  well-nigh  reckless  anxiety  for  causes  which  had  now 
become  sacred.  It  was  easy  to  succumb  to  the  insidious 
temptation  that  truth  was  not  sufficient  for  its  own  de- 
fense, but  must  also  be  served  by  other  weapons  in- 
ferior to  its  single  two-edged  sword.  The  dreadful  tangle 
of  economies  and  reserves;  the  esoteric  interpretations  of 
phrases  the  import  of  which  seemed  obvious  enough;  the 
clericalism  which  read  into  the  Articles  and  Rubrics  a  mean- 
ing diametrically  opposed  to  the  common  apprehension, 
irritated  those  who  had  taken  Anglicanism  on  their  own 
terms,  and  were  bafl3ed  by  this  jungle  of  beginnings  and 
developments.  After  making  every  allowance  for  the  bias 
which  deflected  the  compass  of  even  experienced  mariners 
in  these  stormy  seas,  and  for  the  insular  prejudices  which 
prevailed  among  nearly  all  classes,  it  must  be  admitted  that 


524     THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

the  Neo-Anglicans  did  not  set  an  example  of  intellectual 
integrity  such  as  posterity  should  emulate.  Their  antag- 
onists also  fell  under  the  same  reproach.  The  Evangelicals 
were  more  intent  on  defending  their  teaching  and  under- 
mining the  position  of  their  adversaries  than  upon  deter- 
mining with  open  minds  what  of  substance  lay  behind  these 
wranglings.  Among  liberal  Churchmen,  Maurice,  while 
more  truly  catholic,  was  scarcely  less  subtle  and  mystical 
then  Newman  and  Keble.  If  the  latter  were  driven  to  doubt- 
ful expedients  of  verbal  legerdemain  in  the  task  of  developing 
Anglican  unity  out  of  the  few  explicit  and  the  many  sup- 
posedly implicit  Roman  elements  of  the  Establishment, 
Maurice  was  equally  at  fault  in  laboring  against  reason  and 
facts  to  reconcile  these  elements  in  a  common  formula. 
Low  Churchmen  enlightened  nothing,  but  added  to  a  grave 
and  unfathomable  confusion  by  twisting  and  torturing  the 
phraseology  of  the  Articles  in  order  to  wring  out  of  them 
their  own  definite  and  severe  Protestantism. 

Far  more  potent  than  the  Tracts  in  drawing  sympathy 
and  support  to  the  Oxford  Movement  were  Newman's  ser- 
mons at  St.  Mary's,  in  which  the  preacher  cast  the  spell 
of  his  fastidious  diction,  psychological  skill,  and  spiritual 
influence  over  his  followers,  led  upward  by  him  on  a  golden 
stairway  of  sequences  to  powerful  climaxes.  Paradoxically 
enough,  they  taught  that  religion  is  a  life  of  pure  inward- 
ness, while  they  associated  its  expression  with  venerable 
forms  which  were  sanctioned  and  guarded  by  an  infallible 
•  Church.  Without  the  sermons,  says  Dean  Church,  "  the 
Movement  might  never  have  gone  on,  certainly  would 
never  have  been  what  it  was."  The  living  voice  of  an  ir- 
resistible personality  drove  home  the  meanings  and  implica- 
tions of  the  Tracts.  It  created  the  atmosphere  in  which 
their  statements  became  incumbent  upon  all  who  were  sus- 
ceptible to  the  appeals  of  this  type  of  Anglicanism. 

The  local  and  personal  beginnings  of  the  High  Church 
reaction  antedate  the  appearance  of  the  Tracts  by  nearly 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  525 

two  decades,  under  aspects,  however,  which,  so  far  as  Newman 
is  concerned,  were  very  different  from  those  of  subsequent 
developments.  Thirteen  years  before  the  Tracts  were  ad- 
vertised, Newman  defended  the  Evangelical  side  in  a  contro- 
versy on  baptismal  regeneration,  and  in  1828  Pusey  ac- 
counted for  the  extravagances  of  German  Rationalism  on 
the  ground  of  the  intolerable  orthodoxy  of  Lutheranism. 
He  welcomed  the  aid  of  Kant  and  Schelling  in  behalf  of  a 
higher  faith,  gave  great  praise  to  Schleiermacher,  recognized 
De  Wette's  genuine  Christianity,  and  described  the  gratia 
ministerialis  —  the  efficacy  of  the  Sacraments  and  offices, 
though  administered  by  evil  men  —  as  an  absurd  and 
pernicious  fiction.  "For  awhile,"  observes  Dr.  Martineau, 
"it  seemed  doubtful  which  of  the  two  paths  the  Oxford 
High  Church  was  to  take  —  Germanism  or  Romanism  — 
theological  advance  or  ecclesiastical  retrogression."  ^  New- 
man supplied  an  explanation  for  this  remark  when  he  said 
that  "the  same  philosophical  elements  lead  one  mind  to 
the  Church  of  Rome ;  another  to  what,  for  want  of  a  better 
word,  may  be  called  Germanism."  ^  In  1829,  Dr.  Pusey 
had  supported  Catholic  Emancipation  and  Sir  Robert  Peel's 
unsuccessful  candidature  as  member  of  Parliament  for 
Oxford  University.  Newman,  as  we  have  seen,  opposed 
both,  and  voted  with  the  most  pronounced  partisans  of  the 
Protestant  faction.  Foiled  in  these  earlier  efforts,  the  two 
leaders  were  now  united,  only  to  be  separated  later.  The 
devoted  Anglican,  who  stood  unsheltered  to  the  end,  and 
whose  steadfastness  probably  saved  the  Church  from  schism 
after  Newman's  withdrawal,  came  over  from  the  camp  of 
Liberalism;  the  future  Roman  prince  from  that  of  the 
Orangemen.  Pusey,  like  Keble,  brought  to  the  Trac- 
tarians  a  type  of  Churchmanship  which  he  derived  through 
his  parental  training  from  Bishop  Ken,  Robert  Nelson,  and 
the  Non-Jurors.     His  mind  was  formed  before  Evolution 

>  "Essays,  Reviews  and  Addresses"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  230. 

^  "Essay  on  the  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine"  ;   p.  71. 


526      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

and  Development  had  become  the  normal  channels  of 
thought,  and  his  large  and  systematic  learning  is  now  out 
of  date.  It  was  then  enlisted  in  behalf  of  the  fabric  he  con- 
structed out  of  analogies,  resemblances,  and  metaphors, 
obtained  from  Biblical,  historical,  and  legendary  sources, 
some  of  which  have  no  value  and  abound  in  fanciful  flights 
and  barren  ingenuities.  Any  attempt  to  disparage  these 
was  set  down  as  indicating  a  want  of  piety  and  an  unteach- 
able  and  rebellious  nature.  The  light  inseparable  from 
the  life  of  religion,  and  which  is  the  constant  outpouring 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  and  of  Holy  Scripture,  was  feared  by 
those  who,  like  Pusey,  declared  that  faith  depended  on 
authority,  not  on  reason,  and  that  the  faculty  of  thinking 
and  conceiving  was  detrimental  to  the  spiritualities  within 
men.  The  understanding  became  a  drudge  to  what  was 
described  as  the  conscience,  but  was  in  many  instances 
the  unlicensed  use  of  imagination  to  sustain  theoretical 
speculations  upon  apostolical  succession  and  its  sacerdotal 
sequences.  Reflection  was  condemned  as  inimical  to  obedi- 
ence, and  thus  the  balance  of  reason  and  faith  was  disturbed 
by  arbitrary  opinions. 

Pusey's  accession  to  the  Oxford  Movement  gave  it  con- 
siderable impetus.  The  second  son  of  Philip  Pusey,  and 
grandson  of  Lord  Folkestone,  a  fellow  of  Oriel,  a  German 
scholar,  an  Orientalist,  and  Regius  Professor  of  Hebrew  at 
Oxford,  he  had  a  standing  and  dignity  in  the  University 
which  no  other  Tractarian  could  then  claim.  Newman  called 
him  "o/ieya?"  and  dwelt  with  joyful  gratitude  upon  the 
immense  diligence  and  simple  devotion  of  the  welcome  re- 
cruit. "Without  him  we  should  have  had  little  chance, 
especially  at  the  early  date  of  1834,  of  making  any  serious 
resistance  to  the  Liberal  aggression  ...  he  was  able  to 
give  a  name,  a  form  and  a  personality  to  what  was  without 
him  a  sort  of  mob."  ^  No  man  of  his  age  exceeded  him  in 
his  devotion  to  duty,  which,  as  he  conceived  it,  was  to  spread 

1  "Apologia"  ;   pp.  61-62. 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  527 

among  Churchmen  the  conviction  that  only  on  the  doctrines 
of  the  Fathers  and  the  early  AngHcans  could  Christianity  be 
based.  "My  life,"  he  says  of  himself,  "has  been  spent  in 
a  succession  of  insulated  efforts  bearing  indeed  upon  one 
great  end  —  the  growth  of  catholic  truth  and  piety  among 
us."  His  influence  for  a  time  was  overwhelming,  as  evi- 
denced alike  by  the  praises  of  his  adherents  and  the 
aspersions  of  his  opponents.  It  cannot  be  ascribed  pri- 
marily to  his  enduring  courage,  his  exhaustive  research,  or 
his  sturdy  blows  against  indifferentism,  deism,  and  ultra- 
Protestantism.  First  and  foremost,  he  was  a  true  saint  and 
minister,  whose  pronounced  defects  were  offset  by  a  thor- 
oughly original  and  consecrated  character.  Those  who 
judged  him  by  his  morbidness,  his  remorse,  his  penances, 
his  impolitic  utterances  and  abortive  efforts,  or  in  the  light 
of  their  sincere  dislike  of  the  practices  he  inaugurated  and 
the  ordinances  and  means  of  grace  he  restored,  were  not 
always  aware  that  the  unbending  ecclesiastic,  incessant 
disputant,  and  High  Churchman  facile  princeps,  had  a 
charity  toward  his  critics  which  begot  in  him  a  patience  and 
a  hopefulness  that  never  flagged.  He  once  exclaimed,  in  a 
burst  of  tenderness,  "  I  have  always  had  a  great  love  for  the 
Evangelicals."  Not  many  Evangelicals  of  that  day  could 
have  said  the  same  about  Pusey.  He  stands  out,  even  in 
Newman's  company,  as  an  impressive  figure,  strong,  rugged, 
awkward,  indomitable.  If  his  style  had  none  of  the  grace 
and  allurement  which  were  prominent  in  Newman's  prose, 
his  nature  disclosed  a  passion  for  holiness  that  tempered 
the  hardness,  as  of  iron,  with  which  he  repelled  the  doubter 
and  the  heretic.  There  was  nothing  harmonious  or  artistic 
in  his  make-up,  and  while  he  defended  his  section  of  the 
Church  with  great  ability,  the  foes  he  encountered  were 
largely  imaginary,  so  that  he  never  really  faced  the  forces  of 
essential  agnosticism.  But  he  was  sincere  and  single-minded 
in  his  refusal  to  accommodate  the  perplexities  of  religion 
for  the  sake  of  those  who  sought  relief  therefrom  by  a  pro- 


528     THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

cess  of  simplification,  and  he  deplored  the  utilization  of 
spiritual  instincts  or  institutions  for  the  benefit  of  the  pre- 
vailing social  order  or  to  serve  the  fagged  moods  and  jaded 
tempers  of  secular  minds.  "It  seems  to  be  thought  that 
those  who  have  faith  may  always  be  sacrificed  with  impunity 
to  those  who  have  none,"  he  wrote  when  Archbishop  Tait 
showed  sympathy  with  the  effort  to  rid  the  Prayer  Book  of 
the  Athanasian  Creed.  The  ghosts  of  the  past  were  his 
fond  care,  and  his  biography  is  full  to  repletion  of  the  his- 
tory of  skirmishes  in  their  behalf,  many  of  which  have  long 
since  disappeared  before  the  advance  of  substantial  and 
dangerous  enemies  of  religion.  Believing,  as  he  did,  that 
there  was  an  adequate  objective  correspondence  for  every 
faculty  of  the  soul  and  that  to  disregard  the  law  which 
governed  their  relations  afforded  ground  for  wholesome 
dread  of  retribution,  he  sometimes  expounded  this  article 
in  terms  which  sounded  harsh  and  inhuman.  Yet  he  was  a 
man  of  heart,  pitiful  toward  the  sinner  who  was  repentant 
and  submissive.  And  for  the  Church  at  large  he  was  a 
defender  of  traditions  which  he  identified  with  all  that 
was  sacred  or  salvatory.  No  matter  to  what  sect  or  creed 
such  leaders  belong,  or  how  widely  and  justly  we  differ 
from  them,  they  usually  transcend  their  boundaries  and 
help  to  illuminate  the  life  we  live.  Pusey  does  not  stand 
among  the  immortals,  but  he  had  felt  the  spirit  of  the  High- 
est, and  was  one  of  those  who 

"Cannot  confound,  nor  doubt  Him,  nor  deny;" 

who  are  ever  ready  to  aver, 

"Yea,  with  one  voice,  Oh  World !  though  thou  deniest. 
Stand  thou  on  that  side,  for  on  this  am  I." 

II 

The  Tractarians  disturbed  the  stagnancy  of  Anglicanism, 
and  contradicted  the  prevailing  notion  that  the  Church  of 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  529 

England  was  as  sacrosanct  as  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
works  of  divines  of  the  palmy  Stuart  days  were  rescued  from 
dusty  bookshelves,  while  those  of  Paley,  Horsley,  Hoadley, 
and  Warburton  went  a-begging.  The  leaders  of  the  cult 
knew  exactly  what  they  wanted,  and  in  that  knowledge 
lay  their  strength.  Outwardly  deferential  to  the  episcopacy, 
Keble  and  Pusey  and  Froude  were  at  heart  even  more  in- 
dependent than  Newman ;  he  trusted  the  bishops,  they 
depended  on  the  organization.  All  took  their  stand  upon 
antiquity  and  were  ever  ready  to  give  reasons  for  the  hope 
that  was  in  them,  to  define  and  advocate  their  position. 
The  Evangelicals  had  come  to  the  end  of  their  tether,  the 
Broad  Churchmen  were  divided  in  sentiment  and  circum- 
stances. Whately  had  retired  to  the  comparative  seclusion 
of  archiepiscopal  dignity,  Thirlwall  was  too  philosophical  for 
the  needs  of  faction,  Arnold's  impetuosity  marred  his  useful- 
ness, Hampden  was  laborious  and  uncouth.  The  Trac- 
tarians  held  the  field  at  Oxford,  the  center  of  the  strife,  and 
shared  the  interest  of  onlookers  with  the  Utilitarians  and 
Romanticists.  The  strong,  daring  sternness  of  their  opinions 
was  in  singular  contrast  to  the  composed  meekness  and  sub- 
mission of  their  bearing.  Statesmen,  scientists,  and  literary 
people,  as  well  as  opposing  clerics,  began  to  ask  what  these 
things  meant.  No  man  among  the  earlier  and  wiser  Trac- 
tarians  was  better  able  to  answer  the  question  than  Hugh 
James  Rose,  at  whose  Hadleigh  rectory  the  Movement 
had  been  initiated.  For  a  time  he  ranked  foremost  among 
the  university  dons  and  parish  priests  who,  like  him,  con- 
tended for  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the  Church  and  the 
restoration  of  certain  usages  which  had  come  to  the  verge 
of  extinction.  His  powerful  mind  readily  adopted  every 
means  of  information  offered  to  it,  and  his  earnest  disposi- 
tion commended  him  to  his  companions,  who  entertained 
the  liveliest  expectations  for  his  future.  Without  a  trace 
of  self-seeking,  he  rose  to  an  unusual  place  in  the  regard 
of  the  Church  as  a  whole.  The  German  drift  of  Prot- 
2m 


530     THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

estantism  at  Cambridge  aroused  his  vigorous  objections, 
and  as  a  graduate  of  the  University,  and  a  Select  Preacher 
there,  he  endeavored  to  arrest  the  ravages  of  what  he  deemed 
a  false  liberalism,  Pusey  replied  to  the  strictures  of  Rose 
in  two  volumes,  afterwards  withdrawn  from  circulation, 
in  which,  as  we  have  seen,  he  defended  and  explained  con- 
tinental rationalism.  Among  Newman's  correspondents. 
Rose  alone  acted  as  his  born  equal,  an  assumption  which 
Newman  allowed  without  demur,  believing  him  to  be  the 
one  above  all  others  best  fitted  to  make  headway  against  the 
diflSculties  of  their  day.  His  cool  and  cautious  judgment 
and  his  confidential  relations  with  the  higher  ecclesiastical 
authorities  prevented  him  from  running  with  the  root  and 
branch  Tractarians,  so  that  Froude  soon  lost  faith  in  him  as 
a  possible  leader.  But  his  death  at  the  age  of  forty-three 
was  a  heavy  blow  to  those  who  were  averse  to  ill-considered 
and  extreme  action.  For  some  time  before  his  decease  he 
had  only  a  small  part  in  the  affairs  of  Tractarianism,  yet  had 
he  lived,  its  course  might  have  been  very  different. 

Newman's  verdict  that  William  Palmer  was  the  one 
thoroughly  equipped  scholar  among  High  Anglicans  was 
well  within  the  mark.  His  beliefs  were  ably  expounded  in 
his  "Treatise  on  the  Church  of  Christ,"  which  has  been 
cherished  as  the  most  powerful  and  least  assailable  defense 
of  Anglicanism  from  the  sixteenth  century  onward.  Rome- 
ward  inclinations  never  affected  Palmer,  whose  study  of 
Bellarmine,  Bossuet,  and  other  Catholic  doctors  enabled 
him  to  detect  and  disavow  the  methods  and  ideas  which 
allured  some  of  his  friends.  He  identified  the  fortunes  of 
his  Church  with  those  of  the  State,  and  was  persuaded  that 
both  had  sunk  to  their  lowest  ebb.  A  communion  entirely 
separated  from  the  Papacy  on  the  one  frontier  and  from 
Puritanism  on  the  other,  with  its  own  inherent  life  and 
ministry  of  grace,  was  his  ideal,  and  he  deplored  the  apathy 
and  coldness  of  the  public  mind  toward  it.  Another  elect 
spirit  was  Robert  Isaac  Wilberforce,  the  second  son  of  the 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  531 

well-known  philanthropist.  Wilberforce  lost  contact  with 
Newman  after  their  dismissal  from  the  joint-tutorship  at 
Oriel,  but  in  1843  he  formed  a  friendship  with  Henry  Man- 
ning, then  rector  of  Lavington  and  archdeacon  of  Chichester. 
The  amiable  character,  innate  modesty,  and  accurate  sense 
of  right  and  wrong  of  Wilberforce  were  prized  by  his  fellow 
Tractarians,  and  especially  by  Manning,  who  afterwards 
turned  to  him  as  to  a  father  confessor  for  relief  concern- 
ing his  misgivings  about  the  validity  of  Anglicanism. 
The  Gorham  Judgment  of  1850,  which  denied  that  the  re- 
generating grace  of  Infant  Baptism  was  a  necessary  dogma 
of  the  Church  of  England,  and  ratified  her  subjection  to 
State  control  even  in  so  cardinal  a  doctrine,  added  gall  to 
the  bitterness  Manning  and  Wilberforce  already  felt.  On 
April  8,  1851,  the  former  was  received  into  the  Catholic 
fold,  and  three  years  later,  Wilberforce  followed  him,  but 
did  not  long  survive  his  secession.  While  journeying  to 
Rome  in  1857  to  receive  ordination,  death  deprived  those 
who  loved  and  trusted  him  of  an  unfailing  helper,  incapable 
of  unworthy  motives;  one  who  shone  in  many  directions 
with  a  steady  if  subdued  radiance.  He  was  the  recipient  of 
the  confidences  of  partisans  whose  merits  he  was  well  qualified 
to  determine,  and  he  left  them  an  example  of  intellectual 
rectitude  they  did  not  always  sedulously  imitate. 

In  these  and  other  respects  Charles  Marriott,  "the  man 
of  saintly  life,"  was  much  akin  to  Wilberforce.  To  Mar- 
riott the  Oxford  students  repaired  for  spiritual  direction 
after  Newman  had  departed.  His  devotion  to  Christ,  to 
His  Church,  and  to  the  Movement,  was  without  stint.  No 
other  more  completely  sacrificed  himself,  for  he  placed  upon 
the  altar  of  his  offering  all  that  he  was  and  all  that  he  had. 
Dean  Burgon  states,  in  his  "Lives  of  Twelve  Good  Men," 
that  Marriott's  prevailing  grace  was  an  unbounded  charity, 
which  ministered  to  those  who  sat  in  darkness  and  in 
the  shadow  of  death,  and  enabled  him  to  see  the  good 
in    everything    and    everybody.     Halting    to    eccentricity 


532      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

in  manner  and  conversation,  nevertheless  he  usually  brought 
out  the  core  of  matters  at  stake,  and  his  discourse,  though 
scanty,  was  unfailingly  instructive.  He  was  so  averse  to 
publicity  that  his  literary  labors  were  not  always  as  widely 
known  as  those  of  other  writers  who  depended  on  his  assist- 
ance, and  Pusey  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  Marriott 
had  entire  charge  for  some  years  of  "The  Library  of  the 
Fathers."  To  the  last  he  was  unwilling  to  admit  that 
Rome  had  captured  Newman.  When  this  could  no  longer 
be  denied  he  remained  steadfast  and  spent  the  balance  of 
his  brief  period  and  enfeebled  physical  strength  in  gathering 
up  the  things  that  remained.  Amid  the  panic  that  followed 
Newman's  conversion  no  man,  except  James  B.  Mozley,  did 
more  to  allay  the  fears  and  stem  the  flight  of  those  who 
believed  that  Newman  could  do  no  wrong.  Marriott  could 
not  draw  large  congregations ;  he  did  not  leave  behind  him 
works  of  genius ;  he  enjoyed  few  of  the  pleasures  or  even  the 
necessities  that  are  found  in  other  fields  of  enterprise.  He 
labored  day  and  night  in  the  search  and  defense  of  divine 
truth.^  His  reward  was  with  him,  in  that  he  distilled  upon 
the  heated  air  of  controversy  the  refreshing  fragrance  of 
simple  goodness,  unshaken  hope,  and  love  without  reproach. 
Isaac  Williams,  a  fitting  companion  for  Wilberforce  and 
Marriott,  was  the  son  of  a  Welsh  lawyer  and  landowner, 
and  a  graduate  of  Trinity  College,  Oxford.  He  formed  his 
friendships  at  Oriel,  and  after  he  had  won  the  Chancellor's 
prize  for  Latin  verse,  came  under  the  direction  of  Keble, 
who  looked  upon  him  and  Robert  Wilberforce  and  Hurrell 
Froude  as  his  special  pupils.  Although  accustomed  to 
lean  on  others  for  support,  Williams  had  a  will  of  his  own, 
and  on  occasion  did  not  hesitate  to  assert  himself.  He 
acted  as  Newman's  curate  at  St.  Mary's,  and  afterwards 
gave  this  impression  of  his  vicar :  "  I  was  greatly  delighted 
and  charmed  with  Newman,  who  was  extremely  kind 
to  me,  but  I  did  not  altogether  trust  his  opinions;    and 

^  Thomas  Mozley:  "  Reminiscences"  ;  Vol.  I,  p.  448. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  533 

though  Froude  was  in  the  habit  of  stating  things  in  an  ex- 
treme and  paradoxical  way,  yet  one  always  felt  conscious 
of  a  ground  of  entire  confidence  and  agreement ;  but  it  was 
not  so  with  Newman,  even  though  one  appeared  more  in 
unison  with  his  more  moderate  views."  The  magician 
ultimately  prevailed,  and  the  Tracts  80,  86,  and  87  were 
written  by"  Williams.  It  was  the  hard  fate  of  this 
unsophisticated  man  that  the  first  of  these,  which  dealt 
with  "Reserve  in  Communicating  Religious  Knowledge," 
brought  upon  its  author  a  crushing  rebuke.  The  title  was 
misleading  because  it  seemed  to  justify  the  charge  that  the 
Tractarians  were  evasive  in  their  methods,  but  the  con- 
tents offered  no  adequate  cause  for  the  complaint.  Bishop 
Monk  of  Gloucester  was  obliged  to  admit  that  he  had  con- 
demned the  Tract  without  knowing  its  argument,  and  his 
apology  was  so  flimsy  that  Thomas  Keble,  more  unyielding 
than  his  brother,  resigned  his  rural  deanery  in  that  diocese, 
and  thus  began  the  quarrel  with  the  bishops.  That  Williams 
should  have  produced  an  unfortunate  document  which 
unjustly  exposed  him  to  popular  indignation  and  calumny 
was  extremely  distressing  to  his  guileless  nature.  He  strove 
to  retrieve  the  error  of  his  ill-selected  thesis,  but  this  was 
beyond  him,  and  the  meditative  poet  who  was  revered  by 
his  college  historian  as  too  good  for  this  world,  was  regarded 
by  the  Evangelicals  as  the  most  perfidious  and  dangerous 
member  of  a  wicked  band  of  conspirators.  His  friend  and 
fellow  tutor,  William  John  Copeland,  contemplated  writing 
a  history  of  the  Movement  in  which  they  participated,  a 
task  for  which  his  wide  acquaintance  with  its  supporters 
and  his  retentive  memory  eminently  fitted  him.  But 
pastoral  duties  largely  absorbed  his  energies,  and  until  his 
death  in  1885  he  gave  what  time  he  could  afford  to  his 
correspondence  and  to  the  editing  of  Newman's  "Plain  and 
Parochial  Sermons. ' '  Copeland  also  contributed  to  the  Tracts, 
and  translated  the  "  Homilies  of  St.  John  Chrysostom  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Ephesians"  for  the  "Library  of  the  Fathers." 


534      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

The  general  current  of  Tractarianism  now  began  to  be 
ascertainable.  It  was  marked  by  the  rise  of  forces  which 
swept  away  the  barriers  secrecy  and  caution  at  first  had 
erected :  forces  full  of  a  new  willingness  and  striving ; 
forces  that  threatened  to  disrupt  the  doctrinal  beliefs 
upon  which  recent  ideals  of  Anglicanism  and  Romanism 
had  been  founded,  and  have  since  materially  modified 
these  beliefs  and  ideals.  They  took  their  shape  in  repeated 
disputes  which  endured  for  a  decade ;  of  small  intrinsic  im- 
portance in  themselves;  with  no  more  than  an  adventi- 
tious interest  derived  from  their  connection  with  the  Oxford 
Movement  and  also  with  the  devouring  claims  of  Rome. 
They  were  usually  trials  of  strength,  engineered  now 
by  the  High  Churchmen,  now  by  their  adversaries,  not 
always  with  conspicuous  candor  or  fairness,  nor  fraught 
with  any  good  for  either  party.  Amongst  these  was 
the  nearly  forgotten  Hampden  controversy,  which  assumed 
dimensions  out  of  all  proportion  to  its  deserts.  Cynics 
and  others  who  were  not  cynical  have  derided  it  as  a 
tempest  in  a  tea  cup,  with  no  attraction  except  for  bigoted 
fanatics  and  antiquaries.  We  are  not  going  to  weary  the 
reader  with  an  extended  digest  of  this  quarrel.  Yet  it  should 
be  said  that  it  furnished  the  Tractarians  with  a  prominent 
object  for  their  attack  and  a  coveted  opportunity  to  state 
their  case.  They  desired  nothing  better  than  to  come  to 
conclusions,  not  with  Hampden,  but  with  that  for  which  he 
stood,  and  their  pent-up  energies  were  released  with  alacrity. 
Liberal  Churchmen  were  disgusted  by  such  an  unseemly 
display  of  High  Anglican  rancor;  Erastians  found  fresh 
guarantees  for  their  assertion  that  the  power  of  appoint- 
ment to  certain  preferments  in  the  Church  and  the  Universi- 
ties was  exercised  most  justly  when  left  in  the  hands  of  the 
civil  government.  Hampden  was  a  sober,  plodding  scholar, 
who  owed  his  elevation  to  a  combination  of  circumstances 
rather  than  to  his  talents  or  services.  He  had  made  him- 
self obnoxious  to  High  Churchmen  because  he  subordinated 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  535 

dogma  to  religious  liberty,  and  contrasted  the  benefits  of 
toleration  with  the  evils  of  exclusiveness.  Few,  if  any 
Christians,  he  asserted,  were  really  at  odds ;  even  Unitarians 
and  Anglicans  might  realize  a  common  fellowship  if  only 
faith  were  no  longer  hampered  by  its  doctrinal  forms.  This 
foretaste  of  genuine  catholicity  was  a  pestiferous  heresy  to 
those  who  could  not  conceive  of  religion  except  as  guarded  by 
ecclesiastical  monopolies  and  dogmatic  statements.  New- 
man spoke  for  them  when  he  declared  that  he  would  not  trust 
himself  to  put  on  paper  his  sentiments  about  Hampden's 
principles.  Upon  the  publication  of  his  lectures  on  Moral 
Philosophy,  reactionaries  of  all  Anglican  schools  combined  to 
silence  him  as  an  anti-Christian  writer  and  a  purveyor  of 
baleful  and  erroneous  opinions.  Unshaken  and  unterrified, 
he  came  to  grips  with  them  in  Convocation,  where  he  pro- 
posed that  compulsory  subscription  to  the  Thirty-nine  Arti- 
cles as  the  condition  of  admission  to  the  University  should 
be  abolished.  The  proposal  was  overwhelmingly  defeated, 
but  it  called  the  attention  of  the  Prime  Minister,  Lord 
Melbourne,  to  Hampden's  temerity  as  a  liberal  in  politics 
and  religion,  and  Melbourne  determined  to  nominate  him 
Regius  Professor  of  Divinity  at  Oxford.  His  decision  gave 
the  disturbance  a  fresh  start  and  a  wider  area,  in  which  the 
fury  of  opposition  ran  so  high  that  Hampden  considerately 
offered  to  resign  and  thus  relieve  Melbourne  of  the  odium 
attending  his  appointment.  But  this  the  Premier  would 
not  permit ;  and  when  William  IV,  who  had  been  petitioned 
by  the  Tractarians  through  Archbishop  Howley  not  to 
confirm  the  appointment,  attempted  to  intervene,  his 
outspoken  minister  bluntly  reminded  the  king  that  such 
an  action  would  affect  the  honor  of  the  national  ad- 
ministration and  constitute  an  abuse  of  the  royal 
prerogative.  Quarrels  seldom  turn  upon  the  point  in 
dispute,  and  this  one  became  a  duel  between  Newman 
and  Pusey  on  the  one  side  and  Arnold  and  Archbishop 
Whately    on    the    other.      Newman    issued    a    broadside 


536      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

entitled  "Elucidations  of  Dr.  Hampden's  Theological 
Statements,"  in  which  quotations  from  his  opponent's 
Bampton  licctures  and  other  writings  were  so  openly 
garbled  and  wrenched  from  their  context  as  to  suggest  that 
he  who  wills  the  end  wills  the  means.  Pusey  came  to  his 
assistance  with  a  more  careful  presentation  and  criticism  of 
Hampden's  views.  Arnold  gave  the  reins  to  his  wrath  in 
an  article  on  "The  Oxford  Malignants,"  which  was  published 
in  the  volume  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  for  1836.  His 
words  breathed  the  fiery  indignation  of  a  wholesome  but 
frustrated  reformer  whose  hopes  for  the  betterment  of  the 
Church  were  clouded  by  the  intrusion  of  the  Tractarians. 
He  averred  that  Newman's  methods  implied  intentional 
dishonesty,  and  Whately  stigmatized  their  product  as  a 
tissue  of  deliberate  and  artful  misrepresentations.  There 
were  not  sufficient  grounds  for  impugning  Newman's  moral 
integrity,  but  his  understanding  was  such  that  when  disturbed 
by  matters  he  held  paramount  it  became  essentially  illogical 
and  inveterately  imaginative.  Reason  and  equity  were 
smothered  beneath  the  profusion  of  his  hypotheses  and 
imageries,  and,  as  Sir  James  Stephen  commented,  he 
could  not  do  justice,  either  to  himself  or  to  his  opponents. 
Although  every  possible  influence  was  brought  to  bear, 
nothing  availed  to  annul  Hampden's  appointment,  and, 
aware  of  this,  the  Evangelicals  made  common  cause  with  the 
High  Churchmen  to  hunt  the  wolf  in  sheep's  clothing  from 
the  fold.  After  two  attempts  Convocation  succeeded  in 
depriving  him  of  the  right  to  vote  for  Select  Preachers, 
and  he  remained  officially  censured  and  theologically  dis- 
credited by  the  University  in  which  the  Crown  had  chosen 
him  as  the  instructor  in  divinity.  The  persistency  of  his 
enemies  might  have  led  some  to  suppose  that  he  was  any- 
thing except  what  he  actually  was,  an  orthodox  Churchman, 
albeit  one  sufficiently  enlightened  to  observe  the  relative 
importance  of  life  and  dogma  and  to  respect  the  scruples  of 
the  Nonconformist  conscience.     But  the  Tractarians  repro- 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  537 

bated  him  because  of  his  stalwart  Protestantism,  and  the 
EvangeUcals  disparaged  him  because  he  extended  it  be- 
yond their  credal  confines.  The  humiliating  fight  ended 
with  neither  side  the  winner,  and  when  in  1847  Hampden 
was  elevated  to  the  see  of  Hereford,  some  of  his  per- 
secutors had  already  renounced  the  Church  over  which 
they  formerly  assumed  proprietary  rights,  and  departed  to 
Rome. 

The  ill-assorted  union  between  the  Tractarians  and 
the  Evangelicals  speedily  dissolved ;  animosities  which 
had  been  temporarily  forgotten  during  this  alignment 
revived  again.  The  Evangelicals  felt  that  they  had 
overshot  the  mark,  and  the  publication  of  Froude's  "Re- 
mains" in  1838  intensified  their  chagrin.  The  book  shed  a 
strong  light  on  the  worst  aspects  of  High  Anglicanism,  and 
placed  its  leaders  under  grave  suspicion  concerning  their 
motives  and  objects.  The  Movement  began  to  encounter 
a  power  which  could  be  matched  even  with  that  of  Rome 
herself:  the  Protestant  character  of  the  British  nation. 
So  far  from  assuming  a  Catholic  demeanor,  Englishmen 
demanded  that  the  secret  and  undermining  foes  lurking 
within  the  Establishment  should  be  expelled.  The  first  re- 
sult of  this  formidable  sentiment  was  seen  at  Oxford  when 
the  University  was  solicited  to  erect  a  memorial  to  the 
martyrs,  Ridley,  Latimer,  and  Cranmer,  who  had  suffered 
there  during  the  Marian  burnings.  The  threefold  purpose  be- 
hind the  scheme  was  to  marshal  the  full  strength  of  Oxford's 
allegiance  to  the  Reformed  faith,  to  provide  a  counterblast 
to  Froude's  volume,  and  to  discover  whether  there  were 
any  vestiges  of  Protestantism  left  among  the  Tractarians. 
Newman  and  Keble  hated  the  term  Protestant,  and  much 
that  it  connoted.  They  held  aloof  from  the  proposal,  and 
after  some  hesitation,  Pusey  and  those  who  felt  as  he  did 
followed  suit.  To  honor  the  faith  and  sacrifice  of  the 
three  bishops  was  an  impeachment  of  Anglican  catholicity 
and  an  indirect  indorsement  of  the  Genevan  theology  which 


538      THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF    OXFORD 

the  Tractarians  abjured.  "Any  thing,"  said  Keble,  "which 
separates  the  present  Church  from  the  Reformers  I  should 
hail  as  a  great  good."  The  memorial  was  set  up  without 
their  aid,  to  be,  in  the  words  of  Dean  Church,  "a  decisive 
though  unofficial  sign  of  the  judgment  of  the  university 
against  the  Tractarians." 

It  showed  that  they  had  nothing  favorable  to  expect 
from  the  authorities,  and  that  they  were  fast  severing 
themselves  from  the  nation.  They  were  still  one  in  their 
professions  of  fidelity  to  the  Church,  but  the  last  of  the  Tracts 
was  about  to  appear  and  divide  them  on  that  question.  Its 
pages  glowed  with  light,  heat,  color;  they  were  written 
with  the  pen  of  a  ready  scribe,  never  crude,  always  graceful. 
Yet  despite  Newman's  rare  gifts,  his  in  many  ways  unsur- 
passed charm,  his  unique  personality,  he  was  not  convincing. 
High  intentions  conferred  on  him  no  sufficient  powers  of 
persuasion.  "The  father  of  them  that  look  back,"  he  was 
unable  to  perceive  that 

"  Creeds  pass,  rites  change,  no  altar  standeth  whole :  *' 

in  a  world  of  dust  and  ashes  he  predicated  an  almost  endless 
durability  for  venerable  ideas  and  symbols  which  were  being 
forsaken  when  he  prophesied.  His  mind  worked  under 
conditions  which  his  age  refused  to  accept  and  from  stand- 
points it  instinctively  rejected.  The  far-reaching  extent 
and  apparent  antiquity  of  the  Papal  Church  were  always 
before  him.  They  molded  his  conceptions  of  faith  as 
forever  associated  with  secondary,  incidental  things,  with 
a  formula,  a  hierarchy,  an  institution.  For  him  there  was 
but  one  goal,  ominous  and  repellent  as  it  then  appeared  — 
Christianity  meant  Rome.  The  prolonged  oscillations  of  his 
heart  and  brain,  the  innumerable  impressions  which  he  had 
received  from  widely  separated  sources,  could  not  divert  him 
from  the  underlying  equilibrium  he  eventually  found  in  the 
Papacy. 

These  inward  wrestlings  he  revealed  to  none,  but  Tract 


JOHN    HENRY   NEWMAN  539 

Ninety  could  not  have  been  written  had  he  not  experienced 
them.  They  began  anew  in  1839,  when  he  read  the  history 
of  the  Monophy sites,  and,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  saw  their 
heresy  reflected  in  the  sixteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries. 
If  these  ancient  sectaries  who  contended  that  Jesus  Christ 
was  neither  wholly  divine  nor  wholly  human  but  in  part 
both,  were  heretics,  so  were  Protestants  and  Anglicans  of 
to-day.  "The  drama  of  religion  and  the  combat  of  truth, 
were  ever  one  and  the  same.  The  principles  and  proceed- 
ings of  the  Church  now,  were  those  of  the  Church  then; 
the  principles  and  proceedings  of  heretics  then,  were  those  of 
heretics  now."  The  similarity  may  not  have  been  patent  to 
others,  but  it  was  to  him  ;  he  grieved  over  it,  and  spoke  of  the 
awful  likeness  between  the  dead  records  of  the  past  and 
the  feverish  chronicles  of  the  present.  What  use  was  there 
in  continuing  his  labors  if  he  was  only  forging  arguments 
for  Arius  or  Eutyches,  turning  devil's  advocate  against  the 
much-enduring  Athanasius  and  the  majestic  Leo  ?  "  Be  my 
soul  with  the  saints!"  he  exclaimed  .  .  .  "anathema  to  a 
whole  tribe  of  Cranmers,  Ridleys,  Latimers,  and  Jewels."  * 
During  the  August  of  that  year  he  read  an  article  by  Dr. 
Wiseman  in  the  Dublin  Review,  which  did  not  specially 
interest  him  until  a  friend  called  his  attention  to  the  words 
of  St.  Augustine  quoted  by  Wiseman,  "Securus  judicat 
orb  is  terrarum."  They  became  for  Newman  as  a  nail 
fastened  in  a  sure  place ;  indeed,  driven  through  the  heart 
of  his  theory  of  a  Via  Media.  Although  his  Anglican  prin- 
ciples refused  to  be  silenced,  they  were  mortally  wounded. 
Out  of  the  mists  which  had  so  long  enshrouded  his  vision 
there  leaped  up  a  sudden  definite  presentiment  that  in  the 
end  Rome  would  be  victorious.  To  use  his  own  phrase, 
he  had  seen  the  shadow  of  a  hand  upon  the  wall.  Here- 
after he  felt  a  growing  dislike  to  speak  against  the  formal 
teachings  of  the  Papacy.  Yet  as  a  moral,  social,  and  political 
fabric,  it  was  vulnerable,  and  in  any  event  he  felt  bound 

'"Apologia";   pp.  114-116. 


540       THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

to  return  to  the  defense  of  his  mother  Church.  What  she 
lacked  in  catholicity  she  gained  in  apostolicity.  Her  re- 
juvenation was  still  possible  if  the  vulgar  misunderstandings 
of  her  Articles  could  be  removed,  and  the  doctrines  of  the 
purer  faith  were  permitted  to  live  and  speak  in  her 
formularies.  He  felt  a  grave  responsibility  for  the  younger 
Tractarians,  who  were  bound  in  the  toils  of  his  personality, 
to  whom  he  was  the  real  primate,  the  source  of  light  and 
leading.  Some  were  straining  on  the  leash,  others  straggKng 
toward  Rome.  He  could  neither  consent  to  part  with  them, 
nor  admit  that  their  threatened  defection  was  justifiable. 
Its  ostensible  cause  was  their  resentment  against  the  historic 
Protestantism  of  the  Articles,  and  in  order  to  disabuse  their 
prejudices  Newman  wrote  his  Tract. 

Its  governing  principle  was  the  interpretation  of  the 
Reformed  confessions  in  the  most  inclusive  sense  they 
would  admit,  entirely  subjecting  the  particular  beliefs  of 
their  framers  to  the  beliefs  of  the  Church  universal.  Its 
object  was  to  assure  his  followers  that  they  could  still  find 
divine  life  and  shelter  in  Anglicanism.  Its  fundamental 
errors  were  that  it  contradicted  a  known  historical  develop- 
ment and  dealt  solely  with  credal  mechanisms  which  were 
incapable  of  repairing  their  own  injuries.  In  pursuance 
of  these  principles  and  aims,  Newman  attempted  the 
subjective  creation  of  a  historic  situation  by  his  manip- 
ulation of  language.  None  could  have  made  a  better  at- 
tempt, but  not  even  he  could  achieve  success.  The  license 
with  which  he  treated  historic  phraseologies  was  a  blot  upon 
his  argument.  His  shadings,  softenings,  circumlocutions, 
special  pleadings,  careful  avoidances  of  decisive  features, 
were  by  this  time  familiar  to  his  critics.  Like  Napoleon,  he 
had  revealed  to  observant  foes  the  secret  of  his  strategic 
genius.  Dean  Church  remarked  that  he  pared  down  lan- 
guage to  its  barest  meaning.  His  conclusion  was  that 
though  the  Articles  were  the  product  of  an  unCatholic  age, 
they  were  patient  of  a  Catholic  interpretation.     Since  this 


JOHN    HENRY   NEWMAN  541 

was  the  marrow  of  his  contention,  other  matters  which  he 
mentioned  can  be  passed  over.  Material  in  proof  of  his 
position  was  compiled  from  sundry  sources  without  regard 
for  the  exceptions  and  qualifications  from  those  same  sources, 
which,  if  produced,  as  they  should  have  been,  must  have 
altered  the  substance  of  his  reasoning.  His  antagonists 
based  their  objections  on  the  history  and  the  words  of  the 
Articles.  They  demonstrated  that  the  Anglican  divines  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  although  they  loved  and  revered 
the  earlier  Church,  joined  themselves  to  the  continental 
Reformers  against  the  Renaissance  Papacy,  and  restricted 
the  Rule  of  Faith  to  the  Holy  Scriptures.  The  precise 
weight  to  be  ascribed  to  the  literal  and  grammatical  sense 
of  the  Articles,  which  Newman  claimed  he  had  given,  was 
not  sufficient  for  their  explanation.  Had  it  been  sufficient, 
it  bore  heavily  against  his  exposition.  They  were  so  avowedly 
Protestant  in  dealing  with  Purgatory,  Pardons,  Adoration 
of  Images,  and  the  dogma  of  the  Mass,  that  Newman  was 
hard  driven  to  construe  them  in  any  other  way.  A  review 
of  the  edicts  of  Councils  and  Parliaments  during  the  reigns 
of  Edward  VI  and  Elizabeth  plainly  shows  that  it  was 
the  purpose  of  those  who  took  part  in  them  to  formulate  a 
theological  system  which  should  be  distinctly  Protestant, 
and  at  the  same  time,  not  incompatible  with  the  retention 
of  Catholic  liturgies.  This  would  secure,  as  they  hoped, 
solidarity  for  the  State  Church,  and  uniformity  of  religious 
practice  for  the  nation.  So  far  as  the  framers  of  the  Articles 
were  concerned,  they  intended  to  allow  a  reasonable  lati- 
tude for  their  interpretation  without  compromising  their 
Protestant  determination.  That  such  an  intricate  process 
afforded  Newman  a  suitable  opportunity  for  his  dialectical 
cleverness  could  not  be  gainsaid.  But  he  failed  to  convince 
either  friend  or  foe,  or,  as  it  proved  in  the  sequel,  himself. 
The  Tract  fell  like  a  bomb  shell  in  the  camps  of  Evan- 
gelicals and  High  Churchmen.  Oxford  was  attacked  in  the 
House  of  Commons  as  a  seed  plot  of  Roman  teaching ;  even 


542       THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

the  majority  of  Newman's  friends  felt  that  he  had  advanced 
too  far  into  a  doubtful  region :  his  opponents  accused  him  of 
false  doctrine,  false  history,  false  dialectics,  and  deliberate 
dishonesty.  Ten  days  after  the  Tract  appeared  Churton 
of  Brasenose,  H.  B.  Wilson  of  St.  John's,  Griffiths  of  Wad- 
ham,  and  Tait  of  Balliol  communicated  with  Newman  as 
the  editor  of  the  series,  calling  upon  the  author  to  divulge 
his  identity  and  accusing  him  of  opening  the  way  for  Roman 
doctrines  and  practices  to  be  taught  in  the  University. 
The  Hebdomadal  Board  met  and  without  granting  Newman 
a  hearing,  condemned  the  Tract  out  of  hand  as  evading 
rather  than  explaining  the  sense  of  the  Articles  and  rec- 
onciling subscription  to  them  with  the  adoption  of  errors 
they  were  designed  to  counteract.  Newman  admitted  that 
he  was  its  author,  and  enlarged  upon  his  distinction  between 
the  Tridentine  decrees  and  the  Scholasticism  on  which 
modern  Papal  beliefs  were  founded.  The  hastiness  of  his 
arraignment  was  a  selfish  blunder  which  recoiled  on  the 
perpetrators.  It  brought  him  sympathy  from  unexpected 
quarters  and  summoned  the  more  moderate  Tractarians  to 
his  aid.  After  some  correspondence  with  his  bishop,  Dr. 
Bagot,  it  was  agreed  that  the  Tracts  should  be  discontinued, 
upon  which  for  a  brief  space  the  tumult  subsided.  Newman 
was  gratified  at  the  outcome ;  the  bishops,  as  he  supposed, 
were  anxious  for  peace,  and  to  this  he  consented,  provided 
Tract  Ninety  was  not  to  be  withdrawn  nor  condemned.  He 
decided  to  surrender  nothing  which  he  held  on  conscience,  and 
did  not  yet  realize  that  he  had  helped  to  kindle  a  conflagra- 
tion which  was  beyond  his  power  or  that  of  any  other  man 
to  extinguish.  The  summer  of  1841  found  him  at  Little- 
more,  set  upon  banishing  cares  and  controversies,  and 
busy  with  a  translation  of  St.  Athanasius. 

Such  a  reaction  from  overstrained  tension  must  have  seemed 
to  him  like  a  dream  of  the  Fortunate  Isles.  Yet  self-centered 
as  he  was  in  everything,  not  from  morbid  vanity  or  pride,  but 
because  he  stood  alone,  fashioning  for  himself  more  congenial 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  543 

conditions,  he  had  made  but  little  way  in  his  work  when 
his  troubles  returned,  escorted,  as  usual,  by  the  Arian 
specter,  which  came  to  taunt  him  with  the  helplessness  of 
his  attempts  to  reconcile  the  perplexing  disparities  between 
opposing  theories  or  assign  their  place  and  efficiency  in 
history.  He  again  perceived,  and  again  retreated  from  the 
perception,  that  the  pure  Arians  were  the  Protestants  of 
their  age,  the  semi-Arians  the  Anglicans,  and  that  Rome 
was  now  what  she  had  always  been.  The  misery  of  this 
unsettlement  was  heightened  by  a  second  blow  which 
seriously  weakened  his  hold  upon  Anglicanism.  The 
bishops,  to  use  his  own  language,  "began  charging  against 
us,"  and  the  Tractarians  met  with  the  usual  fate  of  those 
who  traffic  in  new  ideas.  For  three  years  Bloomfield  of 
London,  Sumner  of  Chester,  his  brother  Charles  of  Win- 
chester, Phillpotts,  known  as  "Harry  of  Exeter,"  Copleston 
of  Llandaff,  and  other  prelates  maintained  a  steady  assault 
upon  Newmanism.  "Bishops'  charges,"  says  Mr.  Augus- 
tine Birrell,  "are  amongst  the  many  seemingly  important 
things  that  do  not  count  in  England."  But  on  this  occasion 
they  did  count,  and  their  warnings,  remonstrances,  and 
inhibitions  were  read  and  discussed  in  political  and  clerical 
circles.  Even  Bagot  ceased  to  temporize,  and  although 
lamenting  the  violence  and  unseemliness  of  some  other  at- 
tacks, he  felt  compelled  to  disapprove  interpretations  which 
he  said  were  so  full  of  vagaries  that  the  Articles  may  be  made 
to  mean  anything  or  nothing.  Newman  knew  that  public 
confidence  in  him  was  rudely  shaken,  his  place  among  his 
brethren  lost,  his  occupation  in  the  Movement  gone.  He 
abandoned  his  attempts  to  persuade  the  shepherds  of  the  flock 
that  the  Church  of  England  was  infinitely  more  than  a 
mere  national  institution;  that  it  was  a  living  member  of 
the  one  Church  which  God  had  set  up  from  the  beginning; 
and,  weary  of  Anglicanism,  again  retired  to  Littlemore,  to  be 
"  denounced  as  a  traitor  who  had  laid  his  train  and  was  de- 
tected in  the  very  act  of  firing  it." 


544       THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF  OXFORD 

Programs,  prospects,  hopes,  friendships  changed  with 
startling  rapidity.  Newman's  transparent  scorn  of  the 
bishops  and  their  followers  was  expressed  in  words  the  more 
cutting  because  scrupulously  civil ;  he  was  wounded  to  the 
quick,  nor  did  any  truly  capable  leader  appear  who  might 
have  redeemed  him  to  Anglicanism.  On  the  contrary, 
the  man  who,  after  Newman,  was  chiefly  responsible  for 
wrecking  Tractarianism  now  forged  to  the  front.  The 
audacious  brochures  of  W.  G.  Ward  created  consternation 
in  his  own  ranks,  and  amazed  and  gratified  his  op- 
ponents. That  which  Newman  had  either  left  unsaid 
or  cautiously  suggested,  this  unmanageable  disciple  openly 
avowed,  tearing  away  his  master's  closely  woven  veils  of 
rhetoric,  and  demanding  subscription  to  the  Articles,  not  as 
they  read,  nor  according  to  Newman's  reading  of  them,  but 
in  a  non-natural  sense.  Such  elasticity  of  conscience  in 
the  region  of  theological  bias  is  not  the  least  notable 
curiosity  of  human  nature,  but  while  Pusey  deprecated 
it  in  Ward,  Newman  gave  no  hint  of  repudiating  him.  The 
Via  Media,  the  Tractarian  party,  the  Anglicanism  of  its 
irreconcilable  members,  alike  crumbled  before  the  merciless 
onfall  of  Ward's  logic,  an  outcome  which  delighted  rather 
than  alarmed  its  agent.  He  was  the  refreshingly  candid 
radical  of  the  Oxford  group,  in  some  respects  its  most 
estimable  and  philosophical  theologian,  a  man  of  splendid 
and  diversified  gifts  and  personal  seductiveness.  The 
extensiveness  and  quality  of  his  acquirements  and  the 
good-natured  contempt  with  which  he  treated  his  changing 
fortunes  recall  the  lines  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
in  Henry  the  Fifth  : 

"Hear  him  but  reason  in  divinity, 
And,  all-admiring  with  an  inward  wish, 
You  would  desire  the  King  were  made  a  prelate. 
Hear  him  debate  of  commonwealth  affairs. 
You  would  say,  it  hath  been  all  in  all  his  study : 
List  his  discourse  of  war,  and  you  shall  hear 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  545 

A  fearful  battle  rendered  you  in  music : 
Turn  him  to  any  cause  of  policy, 
The  Gordian  knot  of  it  he  will  unloose 
Familiar  as  his  garter." 

Ward  exhibited  a  marked  development  of  the  reflective  over 
the  imaginative  faculty  and  a  capacity  for  abstract  reason- 
ing which  made  his  writings  on  the  doctrines  of  the  Creator 
and  of  the  free,  responsible,  and  immortal  spirit  of  man, 
works  of  the  best  character.  The  reaction  of  an  over- 
wrought brain,  stimulated  by  his  huge  body,  incurable 
pessimism,  and  numerous  eccentricities,  led  him  to  take 
refuge  in  occupations  not  often  found  in  a  metaphysician. 
He  was  full  of  contradictoriness  and  perversity,  and  would 
sometimes  talk  by  the  hour  "with  such  intense  gravity  and 
such  elaborate  logical  sequence,  that  a  stranger  would  think 
he  must  have  missed  the  drift  of  his  words."  In  religion 
he  was  nothing  if  not  controversial,  and  during  the  intervals 
between  his  incessant  debates  he  found  relaxation  in  music, 
fiction,  and  the  drama ;  passing  from  the  gravest  tasks  to  the 
opera  and  theater  with  equal  facility,  and,  as  he  avowed,  with 
equal  benefit.  The  vigor  and  acumen  of  his  analytical  and 
critical  powers  were  not  cramped,  apparently,  by  his  settled 
orthodoxy.  Although  he  was  supposed  to  reason  under 
confessional  restrictions,  his  agile  mind  enabled  him  to  con- 
vey the  impression  of  consistent  argument,  which,  if  not 
correct,  was,  as  a  rule,  in  clear  agreement  with  its  premises. 
The  accepted  opinion  that  intense  religious  convictions  are 
not  easily  compatible  with  the  free  motions  of  the  intellect, 
or  that  purely  arbitrary  traditions  impede  the  functions 
of  philosophical  reflection,  was  not  sustained  in  the  case 
of  Ward.  Despite  his  theological  narrowness  and  avowed 
sacerdotalism,  he  was,  said  Dean  Church,  "the  most  amusing, 
the  most  tolerant  man  in  Oxford ;  he  had  round  him  per- 
petually some  of  the  cleverest  and  brightest  scholars  and 
thinkers  of  the  place ;  and  where  he  was,  there  was  debate, 
cross-questioning,  pushing  inferences,  starting  alarming 
2n 


546      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

problems,  beating  out  ideas,  trying  the  stuff  and  mettle  of 
mental  capacity.  If  the  old  scholastic  disputations  had 
been  still  in  use  at  Oxford,  his  triumphs  would  have  been 
signal  and  memorable.  His  success,  compared  with  that  of 
other  leaders  of  the  Movement,  was  a  preeminently  intel- 
lectual success."  ^  In  his  first  phase  he  was  a  latitudinarian, 
wavering  between  the  Broad  Churchmanship  of  Tait,  Arnold, 
and  Stanley,  and  the  milder  Utilitarianism  of  John  Stuart 
Mill.  In  this  and  much  else,  "he  represented  the  intellectual 
force,  the  irrefragable  logic,  the  absolute  self-confidence, 
and  the  headlong  impetuosity  of  the  Rugby  School.  What- 
ever he  said  or  did  was  right.  As  a  philosopher  and  a 
logician  it  was  hard  to  deal  with  him."  ^  His  hesitation 
ended  after  his  first  contact  with  Hurrell  Froude  and  New- 
man, although  the  latter  only  mentions  him  once  in  the 
"Apologia."  The  conversations  at  Oriel  and  the  lectures 
and  sermons  at  St.  Mary's  completely  separated  him  from 
Broad  Churchmen  and  the  Millites,  and  he  became  one  of 
the  most  indefatigable,  industrious,  and  yet  independent 
adherents  of  the  Tractarian  party. 

Beneath  his  adherence  to  dialectical  forms  and  his  ex- 
cessive love  of  aesthetics  was  a  profoundly  religious  temper- 
ament which  drove  him  to  seek  for  a  greater  assurance  in 
matters  of  faith  than  reason  could  supply.  He  longed 
for  an  authoritative  organization  to  which  he  could  sur- 
render his  perturbed  mind,  and  enter  into  the  peace 
attained  by  submission.  From  Newman  he  derived  the 
conviction  that  primitive  Christianity  might  have  been 
corrupted  into  Popery,  but  that  no  form  of  Protestantism 
could  possibly  have  developed  into  Catholicism.  This  led 
him  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Tridentine  decrees  were  obliga- 
tory and  that  the  Anglican  Church  must  reconcile  her  Arti- 
cles with  them  or  surrender  her  claim  to  Catholicity.  The 
distinction  which    Newman  made    between  what  was    es- 

1  "The  Oxford  Movement"  ;   pp.  343-344. 

^  Thomas  Mozley :   "Reminiscences"  ;   Vol.  II,  p.  5. 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  547 

sentially  Catholic  as  opposed  to  what  was  purely  Roman 
did  not  satisfy  Ward,  who  argued  that  while  the  Articles 
were  "  patient  of  a  Catholic  meaning  they  were  ambitious  of 
a  Protestant  one ;  the  offspring  of  an  unCatholic  age,  and  a 
hindrance  to  truly  Catholic  belief  in  the  English  Church." 
He  endeavored  to  substitute  for  their  accepted  teaching  his 
conjectural  emendations  on  their  original  doctrine,  or,  at 
any  rate,  what  in  his  view  that  doctrine  should  have  been. 
Because  of  this  proceeding,  at  the  request  of  Tait,  his  friend 
and  fellow-tutor,  he  was  deprived  of  his  lectureship  at 
Balliol,  an  act  which  he  cheerfully  accepted  and  declared 
quite  proper.  His  advance  toward  Rome  grieved  Newman, 
who,  destined  in  this  to  follow  instead  of  lead,  suggested  pru- 
dence and  delay.  Nothing  was  more  contrary  to  Ward's 
temper,  and  after  the  older  Tractarians  saw  that  he  would 
not  yield  to  their  wishes,  they  turned  against  him.  Keble, 
Pusey,  Williams,  and  Palmer  were  now  separated  from  New- 
man, and  yet  further  from  Ward  and  his  admirers.  The 
publication  in  1843  of  Palmer's  "Narrative  of  Events" 
voiced  the  grievances  of  these  conservatives,  who  complained 
of  their  unruly  subordinates  as  contemptuous  toward  the 
Church  of  England  and  her  reformers,  and  servile  in  their 
adulation  of  Rome.  Ward  replied  by  giving  forth  his  "Ideal 
of  a  Christian  Church  considered  in  comparison  with  exist- 
ing Practice."  The  exuberant  gymnastics  of  the  volume, 
which  showed  how  he  could  leap  from  one  side  of  the  fence 
to  the  other  with  astounding  ease  and  indifference,  earned 
for  him  the  sobriquet  of  "Ideal  Ward."  In  manner  argu- 
mentative, in  matter  lacking  cogency,  his  production  con- 
sisted of  one  syllogism,  the  major  premise  being  that  every- 
thing pertaining  to  Rome  was  divinely  authorized;  the 
minor  one,  that  the  common  forms,  methods,  and  rules  of 
the  Church  of  England  were  contrary  to  those  of  Rome : 
hence  the  conclusion,  Rome  was  right  and  all  else  was  wrong. 
Although  Ward  continued  to  assure  his  half-amused,  half- 
outraged  readers  that  he  was  still  an  Anglican,  he  expati- 


548      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

ated  on  the  Roman  Church  in  glowing  terms,  as  the  nearly 
perfect  incarnation  of  Christian  fellowship,  against  which 
the  Protestant  sects  stood  out  in  odious  contrast.  These 
exasperating  sentiments  had  their  sequel  in  his  degradation, 
the  story  of  which  is  postponed  in  deference  to  the  chrono- 
logical order  of  events  and  to  the  account  of  the  third  shat- 
tering blow  which  awaited  Newman. 

Ill 

This  was  the  establishment,  at  the  instance  of  King 
Frederick  William  of  Prussia,  of  the  Jerusalem  bishop- 
ric, an  act  which,  together  with  Newman's  misgivings  over 
ancient  heresies  and  their  modern  counterparts,  and  the 
reprisals  of  the  bishops,  ended  his  relations  with  Angli- 
canism. The  Chevalier  Bunsen,  a  well-known  scholar,  his- 
torian, and  diplomatist  of  the  early  Victorian  period,  was 
commissioned  by  the  Prussian  monarch  to  arrange  with  the 
English  government  for  a  dual  protectorate  over  the  Chris- 
tians in  Palestine  who  were  outside  the  pale  of  the  Eastern 
Churches.  The  origin  of  the  project  may  have  been  due  to 
a  royal  whim,  but  under  Bunsen's  guidance,  it  was  brought 
to  a  successful  issue.  He  knew  and  admired  England  and 
Englishmen,  and  was  anxious  to  cultivate  amicable  relations 
between  his  native  land  and  the  country  in  which  he  spent 
the  larger  part  of  his  life,  where  he  was  for  thirteen  years 
ambassador  at  the  Court  of  St.  James  and  popular  among 
all  classes.  The  bishopric  was  founded  to  be  filled  alter- 
nately by  the  two  governments;  a  mutual  recognition  of 
Anglican  and  Lutheran  orders  and  creeds  was  agreed  upon ; 
Dr.  Alexander  was  consecrated  to  the  see,  and  authorized 
to  ordain  German  Protestants  in  the  Holy  Land  on  their 
signing  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  as  well  as  assenting  to  the 
Augsburg  Confession.  The  scheme  was  approved  by  Broad 
Churchmen,  some  of  whom  were  Bunsen's  personal  friends ; 
the  High  Churchmen  disliked  it ;  the  Tractarians  repudiated 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  549 

it;  and  Newman  labeled  it  "fearful,"  "hideous,"  and 
"atrocious."  In  July,  1841,  he  wrote  in  the  British 
Critic :  "  When  our  thoughts  turn  to  the  East,  instead  of 
recollecting  that  there  are  Christian  Churches  there,  we 
leave  it  to  the  Russians  to  take  care  of  the  Greeks,  and 
the  French  to  take  care  of  the  Romans,  and  we  content  our- 
selves with  erecting  a  Protestant  Church  at  Jerusalem  .  .  . 
or  with  becoming  the  august  protectors  of  Nestorians, 
Monophysites,  and  all  the  heretics  we  can  think  of,  or 
with  forming  a  league  with  the  Mussulman  against  Greeks 
and  Romans  together."  ^  In  November  he  sent  a  solemn 
protest  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  to  his  own 
bishop,  in  which  he  fulminated  against  Lutheranism  and 
Calvinism  as  "heresies,  repugnant  to  Scripture,  springing 
up  three  centuries  since,  and  anathematized  by  East  as  well 
as  West."  The  assumption  that  the  Anglican  Church  was 
in  origin  and  doctrine  closely  allied  to  the  German  Evangeli- 
cal Churches  was  abominated  by  those  whom  he  represented. 
Once  admitted,  as  it  was  in  this  case,  such  an  assumption 
destroyed  the  claim  of  the  Church  of  England  to  be  considered 
a  branch  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  condemned  the  theory 
of  the  Via  Media.  From  now  onward,  in  Newman's  estimate, 
Anglicanism  was  "either  not  a  normal  portion  of  that  one 
Church  to  which  the  promises  were  made,  or  at  least  one  in 
an  abnormal  state."  ^  It  may  be  added  that  the  "Fancy 
Church,"  as  Mr.  Gladstone  called  the  organization  at  Jeru- 
salem, had  a  very  brief  and  ineffective  existence,  and  after 
the  joint  arrangement  had  furnished  three  bishops  it  was 
relinquished. 

These  three  blows  which  had  fallen  upon  Newman  were 
now  followed  by  three  defeats.  The  Liberal  Churchmen, 
encouraged  by  their  success  in  the  matters  of  Tract  Ninety 
and  the  Jerusalem  episcopate,  resolved  to  push  their  advan- 
tage, and  the  contest  for  the  Professorship  of  Poetry  at 
Oxford,   which   Keble    resigned  in    1841,   gave    them    an 

»  "Apologia"  ;   pp.  141-142.  2  /^^^^  pp_  i49_i5o. 


550      THREE  RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OP  OXFORD 

opening.  Isaac  Williams,  the  Tractarian  candidate, 
possessed  some  poetical  gifts  of  which  his  victorious  rival, 
James  Garbett,  was  entirely  guiltless.  Williams  was  placed 
in  nomination  only  to  discover  how  seriously  his  candida- 
ture had  been  prejudiced  by  his  partisan  connections  and 
by  his  authorship  of  the  Tract  on  "Reserve."  He  was 
further  handicapped  by  an  ill-timed  circular  letter  which 
Dr.  Pusey  sent  out  recommending  him  for  the  professorship 
on  the  ground  of  his  religious  views.  His  failure  to  obtain 
the  chair  so  deeply  distressed  Williams  that  he  withdrew 
from  Oxford  to  Stinchcombe,  near  Dursley,  where  he 
found  consolation  in  writing  those  devotional  commentaries, 
poems,  and  hymns  which  are  still  prized  by  some  High 
Churchmen.  Far  more  important  than  this,  the  first  set- 
back of  the  Tractarians  as  a  party,  was  the  attack  made  on 
Dr.  Pusey  and  headed  by  Hawkins,  the  Provost  of  Oriel. 
On  May  24,  1843,  Pusey  preached  in  Christ  Church 
Cathedral  on  the  Holy  Eucharist,  and  although,  according  to 
Dean  Church,  he  used  language  strictly  in  accordance  with 
that  of  other  Anglican  divines,  the  sermon  was  made  the 
basis  of  action  against  him  for  heresy.  Its  assessors  were 
Hawkins,  Symons,  Jenkyns,  Ogilvie,  Jelf,  and  Faussett,  two 
of  whom  acted  as  both  accuser  and  judge.  They  condemned 
Pusey  and  inhibited  him  from  preaching  within  the  Uni- 
versity for  two  years.  The  proceedings  were  irregular 
throughout;  Pusey  was  neither  allowed  a  hearing  nor 
acquainted  with  the  charges  made  against  him.  He  did 
not  even  know  who  the  objectors  were,  except  from 
rumor,  nor  to  what  standards  his  sermon  had  been  sub- 
mitted. Consequently,  although  he  offered  to  sign  an 
explanatory  statement,  he  would  not  formally  retract 
what  he  had  said,  and  his  illegal  and  unjust  suspension 
remained  in  effect.  It  both  confirmed  High  Churchmen  in 
their  obduracy  and  brought  Newman  nearer  to  secession. 
"Things  are  very  serious  here,"  he  wrote  to  a  friend;  "the 
authorities  find  that,  by  the  statutes,  they  have  more  than 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  551 

military  power,  and  the  general  impression  seems  to  be, 
that  they  intend  to  exert  it,  and  put  down  Catholicism  at 
any  risk."  ^ 

Ward  was  the  next  offender  slated  for  a  severe  punishment, 
and  one  which  marked  the  final  overthrow  of  the  original 
phase  of  Tractarianism.  On  the  13th  of  February,  1845, 
Convocation  ratified  formally  the  action  to  censure  him 
already  adopted  by  the  Hebdomadal  Council.  He  made  a 
unique  defense  of  his  opinions,  and  assured  the  Convocation 
that  he  was  still  loyal  to  Anglicanism,  while  at  the  same 
time  he  held  the  whole  content  of  Roman  doctrine.  Such 
arguments  strengthened  the  resolution  of  his  enemies  to 
silence  him  :  his  book  on  the  "Ideal  Church"  was  condemned 
and  his  degrees  taken  from  him.  Upon  this  he  resigned  his 
fellowship,  and  although  hitherto  an  avowed  believer  in 
celibacy,  he  married,  retired  to  Rose  Hill,  near  Oxford, 
and  in  September  of  that  year,  was  received  into  the  Church 
of  Rome.  The  career  of  this  richly  endowed  but  wayward 
genius  has  been  portrayed  in  the  admirable  and  impartial 
biography  written  by  his  son.  Dr.  Wilfred  Ward.  Tenny- 
son, who  was  neighbor  to  him  in  his  last  days,  composed 
the  well-known  epitaph  which  commemorated  a  most 
extraordinary  and  lovable  character. 

"Farewell,  whose  living  like  I  shall  not  find, 
Whose  faith  and  work  were  bells  of  full  accord, 
My  friend,  the  most  unworldly  of  mankind, 
Most  generous  of  all  ultramontanes.  Ward, 
How  subtle  at  tierce  and  quart  of  mind  with  mind. 
How  loyal  in  the  following  of  thy  Lord." 

Ward  rightly  rebuked  Protestant  harshness  towards  Rome, 
but  it  is  questionable  whether  he  was  ever  in  the  vanguard 
of  spiritual  leadership  in  Britain,  and  although  he  made 
sport  with  logic,  ultimately  logic  took  its  revenge  on  him. 
He  addressed  his  appeals  to  his  countrymen,  heedless  that 

1  "Apologia"  ;  p.  179. 


552      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

they  deprecated  the  exaltation  of  any  theories  beyond  their 
legitimate  sphere  as  working  hypotheses,  and  were  wont  to 
apply  the  antiseptic  of  common  sense  to  the  laudations  of 
those  who  worshiped  an  abstraction.  Even  Ward's  skillful 
handling  could  not  avoid  the  collision  between  sentiment  and 
reason,  or  lessen  the  distaste  of  those  who  held  with  Burke 
that  nothing  absolute  can  be  affirmed  on  any  moral  or 
political  issue.  Consequently  they  rejected  a  religious 
philosopher  who  was  wanting  in  gravity,  and  who,  at  a  pinch, 
could  make  the  worse  appear  the  better  reason.  Yet,  in 
the  larger  sense,  Ward's  personal  life  was  anything  but  in- 
consistent, and,  in  the  lesser  sense,  many  of  his  inconsisten- 
cies were  due  to  the  wide  sweep  of  his  vision  and  the  great- 
ness of  his  nature. 

His  condemnation  and  secession  to  Rome  marked  the 
exit  of  other  notable  converts,  amongst  whom  were  Dal- 
gairns,  Frederick  Oakley,  Ambrose  St.  John,  and  F.  W^. 
Faber.  Newman  testified  in  words  often  quoted :  "  From 
the  end  of  1841,  I  was  on  my  deathbed,  as  regards  my 
membership  with  the  Anglican  Church,  though  at  the  time 
I  became  aware  of  it  only  by  degrees."  ^  It  w^as  indeed  a 
lingering  death  and  yet  one  which  the  events  we  have  cited 
rendered  certain.  He  relinquished  the  editorship  of  the 
British  Critic  and  asked  that  his  name  should  be  kept 
out  of  it  as  far  as  possible.  A  little  later,  in  1842,  he.  left 
his  room  at  Oriel,  and  went  to  Littlemore,  where  he  and  a 
few  disciples  lived  in  monastic  seclusion,  praying,  fasting, 
studying,  and  repeating  the  daily  offices.  In  1843  he  made 
a  formal  retraction  of  all  the  hard  things  he  had  said 
against  the  Roman  Church,  and  on  September  18th  of  that 
year  he  resigned  the  living  of  St.  Mary's.  On  the  25th  he 
uttered  his  valedictory  as  an  Anglican  preacher :  the  sermon 
on  "The  Parting  of  Friends,"  delivered  to  a  small  and 
grief-stricken  congregation  in  the  church  at  Littlemore. 
The  October  following  he  returned  to  Oxford,  where,  on  the 

1  "Apologia"  ;   p.  147. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  553 

15th,  he  celebrated  the  Holy  Eucharist  at  St.  Mary's  for  the 
last  time,  when  those  worshipers  to  whom  he  meant  more 
than  words  could  express  gathered  around  the  altar  with 
conflicting  emotions.  He  had  now  come  to  the  margin, 
but  he  feared  to  launch  away.  Though  he  "was  very  far 
more  sure  that  England  is  in  schism,  than  that  the  Roman 
additions  to  the  Primitive  Creed  may  not  be  developments, 
arising  out  of  a  keen  and  vivid- realizing  of  the  Divine  De- 
positum  of  Faith,"  ^  two  years  were  to  elapse  before  he  en- 
tered on  the  unknown  regions  ahead ;  an  interval  during 
which  he  wrote  his  "  Essay  on  the  Development  of  Christian 
Doctrine." 

This  was  his  apologetic  for  the  step  he  was  about  to  take. 
Through  it  he  hoped  to  demolish  the  objections  against  Rome 
because  of  the  accretions  of  her  later  beliefs  and  practices, 
by  proving  that  these  were  simply  expansions  of  the 
original  seed  of  truth  committed  to  the  Apostles.  The 
work  was  begun  in  1845,  and  as  it  advanced  his  diffi- 
culties vanished ;  he  no  longer  referred  to  those  who  held 
the  views  he  discussed  as  " Roman  Catholics "  but  as  "Cath- 
olics"; he  had  not  completed  his  task  when  he  resolved  to 
be  received  into  their  faith,  and  the  volume  remains  in  the 
unfinished  state  in  which  it  was  then.^  He  stated  that  it 
was  his  intention  and  wish  to  have  carried  the  book  through 
the  press  before  his  secession,  but  he  recognized  in  himself  a 
conviction  of  the  truth  of  the  conclusion  to  which  the  dis- 
cussion led,  so  clear  as  to  supersede  further  deliberation. 
Here  followed  one  of  those  passages,  observes  Mr.  Hut- 
ton,  "by  which  Newman  will  be  remembered  as  long  as  the 
English  language  endures." 

"Such,"  he  wrote,  "were  the  thoughts  concerning  'The 
Blessed  Vision  of  Peace'  of  one  whose  long-continued  peti- 
tion had  been  that  the  Most  Merciful  would  not  despise 
the  work  of  His  own  hands,  nor  leave  him  to  himself ;    while 

•  "Apologia"  ;   pp.  208-209. 
2  Ibid.,  p.  234. 


554       THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS  OF   OXFORD 

yet  his  eyes  were  dim,  and  his  breast  laden,  and  he  could 
but  employ  Reason  in  the  things  of  Faith.  And  now,  dear 
reader,  time  is  short,  eternity  is  long.  Put  not  from  you 
what  you  have  here  found ;  regard  it  not  as  mere  matter  of 
controversy;  set  not  out  resolved  to  refute  it,  and  looking 
about  for  the  best  way  of  doing  so  ;  seduce  not  yourself  with 
the  imagination  that  it  comes  of  disappointment,  or  disgust, 
or  restlessness,  or  wounded  feeling,  or  undue  sensibility,  or 
other  weakness.  Wrap  not  yourself  round  in  the  associa- 
tions of  years  past,  nor  determine  that  to  be  truth  which 
you  wish  to  be  so,  nor  make  an  idol  of  cherished  anticipa- 
tions. Time  is  short,  eternity  is  long.  Nunc  dimittis 
servum  tuum,  Domine,  secundum  verbum  tuum  in  pace, 
quia  viderunt  oculi  mei  salutare  tuum."  ^ 

The  "Essay"  has  received  more  attention  than  any  other 
prose  work  of  Newman's  except  the  "Apologia,"  and  in 
it  theologians  have  found  grounds  for  their  assertion  that 
Newman  was  the  progenitor  of  Modernism.  Its  construc- 
tive statements  dealt  with  the  wide  divergencies  between  the 
teachings  of  the  New  Testament  and  those  of  Catholicism. 
These  were  apparent,  not  only  in  degree  but  in  essence,  and 
presented  a  strong  prima  facie  case  against  the  historical 
continuity  of  Roman  doctrine.  Not  only  so,  but  when  the 
authorized  creeds  current  in  different  ages  of  the  Church 
were  compared,  large  variations  were  disclosed.  How  could 
these  variations  be  harmonized  as  actual  necessary  parts 
of  a  homogeneous  whole?  Newman  arrested  the  argument 
at  this  stage  to  point  out  that  Christianity,  however  ex- 
plained, was  first  and  last  a  supreme  fact  established  in  his- 
tory, and  could  not  be  treated  as  a  matter  of  private  opinion. 
Theories  did  not  create  its  importance,  but  its  importance 
created  them.  Therefore  they  should  neither  over-ride 
nor  minimize  the  reality  of  a  faith  which  had  found  its 
objective  existence  not  in  the  cloister  nor  the  sanctuary, 
but  in  the  world.     It  had  been  public  property  for  many 

*  "  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine"  ;  p.  445. 


JOHN    HENRY    NEWMAN  555 

centuries,  and  to  know  it  men  must  listen  to  the  records  of 
the  past.  He  was  so  confident  history  was  at  last  on 
his  side  that  he  could  afford  to  be  careless  and  over-lib- 
eral in  allowing  a  greater  weight  to  its  evidence  in  behalf 
of  his  opponents  than  they  could  properly  claim.  "Let 
them  consider,"  said  the  polemic  who  in  defiance  of  history 
had  endeavored  to  wrest  out  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles 
the  Catholic  meaning  he  coveted,  "that  if  they  can  criticize 
history,  history  can  retort  upon  them."  It  was  neither 
creed  nor  catechism,  but  none  could  mistake  its  general 
import  in  this  matter,  whether  he  accepted  or  rejected  it. 
Its  bold  outlines  and  broad  masses  of  color  arose  in  per- 
spective, distant,  incomplete,  but  still  definite.  And  one 
thing  was  certain ;  whatever  history  taught,  whatever  it 
magnified,  whatever  it  extenuated,  whatever  it  said  or  un- 
said, at  least  the  Christianity  of  history  was  not  Protestant- 
ism. If  ever  there  was  a  safe  truth,  it  was  this,  and  Prot- 
estantism had  ever  so  felt  it.  If  not,  why  had  its  founders 
thrust  aside  historical  Christianity,  dispensing  with  it  al- 
together and  forming  their  doctrine  from  the  Bible  alone? 
The  long-continued  neglect  of  ecclesiastical  history  in 
England,  and  even  in  the  Anglican  Church,  was  accentuated 
by  the  melancholy  reflection  that  perhaps  the  only  English 
author  who  had  any  right  to  be  considered  an  ecclesiastical 
historian  was  the  unbeliever  Gibbon.  The  utter  incongruity 
between  Protestantism  and  historical  Christianity  extended 
alike  to  early  and  later  times ;  it  could  as  little  bear  its  Ante- 
nicene  as  its  Post-tridentine  period.^  To  be  deep  in  history 
was  to  cease  to  be  a  Protestant,  whereas,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  Roman  Catholic  communion  was  the  heir  of  patristic 
Christianity.  All  parties  agreed  that  did  St.  Athanasius 
or  St.  Ambrose  come  suddenly  to  life  they  would  find  them- 
selves more  at  home  with  such  men  as  St.  Bernard  or  St. 
Ignatius  Loyola,  or  with  the  lonely  priest  in  his  lodging, 
than  with  the  teachers  of  any  other  creed.- 

'  "Development  of  Christian  Doctrine"  ;   pp.  7-8.      ^  Ibid.,  pp.  97-98. 


556       THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF  OXFORD 

Newman  admitted  the  abstract  possibility  of  changes  in  the 
original  deposit  of  the  faith,  but  added  that  those  who  advanced 
the  assumption  should  sustain  it,  for  unbelief  must  justify 
itself  as  well  as  faith.  And  until  positive  reasons  grounded 
on  facts  were  advanced  to  the  contrary,  the  most  natural 
hypothesis  was  to  consider  that  the  society  of  Christians 
the  Apostles  left  on  earth  were  of  that  religion  to  which 
they  had  been  converted.  The  external  continuity  of  name, 
profession,  and  communion  argued  a  real  continuity  of 
doctrine.  Christianity  began  by  manifesting  itself  to 
mankind  in  a  given  shape  and  bearing.  Therefore  it  went 
on  so  to  manifest  itself.  To  take  it  for  granted  that  the 
intervening  periods  had  preserved  in  substance  the  very 
religion  which  Christ  and  His  Apostles  taught  in  the  first 
centuries  was  not  a  violent  supposition,  but  mere  abstinence 
from  the  wanton  admission  of  a  principle  to  the  contrary 
which  necessarily  led  to  the  most  vexatious  and  preposterous 
skepticism.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  modifications 
for  good  or  for  evil  which  lapse  of  time  and  the  vicissitudes 
of  human  affairs  had  impressed  upon  the  original  revelation, 
in  essence  it  was  the  same,  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever.^ 

Conceding  the  emergence  of  certain  apparent  variations 
in  the  teaching  of  the  Church,  he  sought  to  explain  them 
without  hurt  to  the  unity,  directness,  and  consistency  of 
that  teaching.  Doctrinal  development  arose  out  of  the 
power  of  Christianity  to  impress  its  ideas  upon  the  mind, 
and  these,  being  subject  matter  for  the  exercise  of  reason, 
expanded  into  other  ideas,  harmonious  with  one  another, 
and  in  themselves  determinate  and  immutable,  as  was  the 
objective  Christianity  which  they  represented.  The  more 
vital  ideas  were,  the  more  manifold  their  aspects  would 
be.  Too  deep  and  opulent  for  immediate  apprehension, 
their  bearings,  multiform,  prolific  and  ever  resourceful, 
kept  pace  with  the  changing  fortunes  of  mankind.  The 
longer    they    endured,    the    more    clearly   they    were    ap- 

*  "Development  of  Christian  Doctrine"  ;  p.  6. 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  557 

prehended  and  expressed.  Contemplation  and  reflection 
gradually  absorbed  meanings  which,  implicit  from  the 
first,  sometimes  persisted  through  many  generations 
before  they  became  explicit.  True  everywhere,  supremely 
true  of  Christianity,  this  principle  overthrew  the  objection 
that  the  inspired  writings  definitely  decreed  the  limits  of 
Christian  doctrine. 

The  dogmas  which  Protestants  renounced  as  superfluous, 
were  in  reality  the  latest  forms  of  ideas,  which,  though  not 
found  in  the  Bible,  were  incipient  in  the  sacred  writers  and 
in  their  readers.  This  was  a  wise  provision,  for  Christian- 
ity, as  a  universal  religion,  intended  for  all  times  and  peoples, 
was  bound  to  adapt  itself  to  different  environments  or  cease 
to  be  effective.  Its  teachings  were  capable  of  infinite  appli- 
cations which  corresponded  with  the  social  demands  made 
upon  them.  Nor  were  the  straitest  orthodoxies  of  the 
Reformed  Churches  exempt  from  the  workings  of  this  law 
of  change.  The  duty  of  public  worship,  the  substitution 
of  the  first  for  the  seventh  day  of  the  week  as  the  Lord's 
Day,  the  rite  of  Infant  Baptism,  and  the  aflSrmation  that  the 
Bible  alone  was  the  religion  of  Protestantism,  had  little  if  any 
prominence  in  the  New  Testament.  They  were  not  derived 
from  the  direct  usage  and  sanction  of  the  sacred  writings, 
but  from  the  unconscious  growth  of  ideas  fostered  by  the 
Christian  experience  of  nearly  twenty  centuries.  Similarly, 
numerous  other  questions  were  found  in  Scripture  which 
Scripture  did  not  solve;  questions  so  real  and  practical 
that  they  must  be  answered  by  a  development  of  the  letter 
of  revelation.  So  much  was  this  the  case,  that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  avoid  the  conviction  that  post-biblical  evolutions 
of  Christian  teaching  were  part  of  the  •  providential 
purpose  of  its  Divine  Author.  The  presence  of  need 
and  its  supply  in  nature  constituted  a  convincing  proof 
of  design  in  the  material  creation ;  in  like  manner  the 
breaches  which  occurred  in  the  structure  of  the  original 
creed  of  the  Church  made  it  probable  that  those  develop- 


558      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

ments  which  grew  out  of  the  truths  surrounding  that  creed 
were  intended  to  fill  up  its  fissures. 

This  probability  was  reenforced  by  the  consideration  that 
the  entire  Bible  was  written  under  the  governance  of  the 
principle  of  development  —  "  line  upon  line,  precept  upon 
precept."  Its  revelations  were  disclosed  "in  sundry  parts 
and  divers  manners,"  ever  new,  ever  old;  the  new  being 
not  a  renewal  but  an  expansion  of  the  old.  Our  Lord  Him- 
self declared :  "  Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  destroy  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets,  I  am  not  come  to  destroy  but  to  ful- 
fil." Nor  could  the  exact  point  be  found,  either  in  the 
Apostolic  teachings  or  afterwards,  where  the  vital  growth 
of  dogma  ceased  and  the  Rule  of  Faith  was  established  in 
finality.  No  doctrine  was  so  complete  in  its  primary  stages 
as  to  require  nothing  in  addition.  The  Apostolic  Church 
received  the  seed  of  truth,  the  nucleus  of  a  coherent  system 
of  belief;  a  living  seed,  a  living  nucleus,  to  be  developed 
by  its  own  potentialities  reacting  upon  society,  and  beneath 
the  direction  of  the  Spirit  of  the  living  God. 

Thus  far  Newman  enlisted  general  assent,  and  showed 
how  magnificently  he  could  have  handled  theological  prob- 
lems in  the  light  of  the  biological  learning  he  uncon- 
sciously heralded.  But  when  he  entered  the  next  phase 
of  the  discussion  and  tried  to  justify  Roman  doctrine 
and  practice  as  the  inevitable  outcome  of  the  residual 
forces,  implicit  or  explicit,  of  New  Testament  Christianity, 
his  touch  was  not  so  sure.  The  contrary  elements  injected 
by  human  malignancy  and  misdirection  have  sadly  inter- 
fered with  the  smooth  operation  of  this  theory  in  the  realm 
of  faith  and  morals.  On  every  hand  contending  sects  arose, 
alien  to  one  another,  each  equally  confident  of  its  direct 
and  unmixed  descent  from  the  parental  stock.  How  was 
the  vexed  question  of  their  opposing  claims  to  be  adjudi- 
cated? Newman  replied,  by  an  infallible  Church.  "In 
proportion  to  the  probability  of  true  developments 
in  the  Divine  Scheme,  so  is  the  probability  also  of  the 


JOHN   HENRY   NEWMAN  559 

appointment  in  that  scheme  of  an  external  authority 
to  decide  upon  them,  thereby  separating  them  from 
the  mass  of  mere  human  speculation,  extravagance,  cor- 
ruption, and  error,  in  and  out  of  which  they  grow."  ^ 
There  is  small  chance  of  escape  from  his  conclusion  for  either 
Romanists  or  Protestants  who  identify  religious  life  with 
the  acceptance  of  doctrinal  formulae.  An  infallible  revela- 
tion committed  to  the  care  of  fallible  custodians  is  only  a 
large  indication  of  the  exasperating  risks  of  ultra-ortho- 
doxy. To  the  precise  and  logical  intellect  of  Newman  such 
a  revelation,  when  subjected  to  the  thousand  and  one  inter- 
pretations of  private  judgment,  was  too  variable  a  compass 
for  safe  navigation.  He  argued  that  certain  Catholic  doc- 
trines professing  to  be  Apostolic,  and  possessing  high  an- 
tiquity, were  universally  considered  in  each  successive  age  as 
the  echo  of  doctrines  of  the  times  immediately  preceding, 
and  thus  were  continually  thrown  back  to  a  date  indefinitely 
early.  Moreover,  they  formed  one  body,  so  that  to  reject 
one  was  to  disparage  the  rest.  They  also  occupied  the  whole 
field  of  theology  and  left  nothing  to  be  supplied,  except  in 
detail,  by  any  other  system.  From  these  statements  he  drew 
the  inference  that  the  nearest  approach  to  the  religious 
sentiment  and  Ethos  of  the  Early  Church,  even  of  the 
Apostles  and  Prophets,  was  to  be  found  in  Roman  teaching. 
All  would  agree,  he  urged,  that  Elijah,  Jeremiah,  the  Bap- 
tist, and  St.  Paul  were  in  their  history  and  mode  of  life  more 
like  a  Dominican  preacher,  a  Jesuit  missionary,  or  a  Carmelite 
friar ;  more  like  St.  Toribio,  St.  Vincent  Ferrer,  St.  Francis 
Xavier,  or  St.  Alphonso  Liguori,  than  any  individuals,  or 
classes  of  men,  that  could  be  found  in  other  communions.^ 
Why  all  should  agree  to  this  monopoly  of  resemblance  does 
not  appear.  John  Wesley,  Henry  Martyn,  Adoniram  Judson, 
David  Livingstone,  Bishop  William  Taylor,  and  a  host  of 
other  Protestant  worthies  had  many  external  features 
in  common  with  the  Biblical  heroes  named. 

*" Development  of  Christian  Doctrine "  ;   p.  78.       ^ /bid.,  pp.  99-100. 


560       THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS   OF  OXFORD 

He  next  enumerated  the  features  which  every  genuine 
development  of  Christian  ideas  presented  and  by  which  it 
could  be  recognized :  preservation  of  type,  continuity  of 
principles,  power  of  assimilation,  logical  sequence,  antici- 
pation of  its  future,  conservative  action  upon  its  past,  and 
chronic  vigor.  Neither  Thomas  Huxley  nor  Herbert  Spencer, 
who  had  the  advantage  of  the  evolutionary  hypothesis,  ex- 
celled Newman  in  the  invention  and  suitability  of  scien- 
tific nomenclature.  The  rest  of  the  volume  was  devoted  to 
applying  these  seven  tests  to  the  doctrines  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  An  extended  argument  on  the  first  — 
the  preservation  of  type  —  was  prefaced  by  the  following 
inquiry :  "  What  is  Christianity's  original  type  ?  and  has 
that  type  been  preserved  in  the  developments  commonly 
called  Catholic  ?  Let  us  take  it  as  the  world  now  views  it  in 
its  age ;  and  let  us  take  it  as  the  world  once  viewed  it  in  its 
youth ;  and  let  us  see  whether  there  be  any  great  difference 
between  the  early  and  the  later  description  of  it.  .  .  .  There 
is  a  religious  communion  claiming  a  divine  commission,  and 
holding  all  other  religious  bodies  around  it  heretical  or  in- 
fidel ;  it  is  a  well-organized,  well-disciplined  body ;  it  is 
a  sort  of  secret  society,  binding  together  its  members  by 
influences  and  by  engagements  which  it  is  diflBcult  for 
strangers  to  ascertain.  It  is  spread  over  the  known  world ; 
it  may  be  weak  or  insignificant  locally,  but  it  is  strong  on 
the  whole  from  its  continuity ;  it  may  be  smaller  than  all 
other  religious  bodies  together,  but  it  is  larger  than  each 
separately.  It  is  a  natural  enemy  to  governments  external 
to  itself ;  it  is  intolerant  and  engrossing,  and  tends  to  a  new 
modeling  of  society ;  it  breaks  laws,  it  divides  families.  It 
is  a  gross  superstition ;  it  is  charged  with  the  foulest 
crimes ;  it  is  despised  by  the  intellect  of  the  day ;  it  is  fright- 
ful to  the  imagination  of  many.  And  there  is  but  one  com- 
munion such.  Place  this  description  before  Pliny  or  Julian, 
.  .  .     Each  one  knows  at  once  who  is  meant  by  it."  ^ 

*  "Development  of  Christian  Doctrine"  ;   pp.  207-208, 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  661 

In  enlarging  upon  the  second  note  —  continuity  of  prin- 
ciples —  the  following  ideas  were  evolved  from  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Incarnation :  Dogma,  or  supernatural  truths 
committed  to  human  media ;  Faith,  as  the  necessary 
correlative  of  dogma;  Theology,  which  was  the  output 
of  the  human  mind  operating  upon  the  truths  given  by 
dogma  to  faith ;  the  Sacramental  -principle,  which  con- 
veyed the  supreme  gift  of  God  in  the  material  and  visible 
medium  of  our  Lord's  physical  body ;  the  necessary  use  of 
Mystical  Language,  since  words  were  invested  with  a  sacra- 
mental office ;  the  Sanctification  of  Grace  ;  the  practice  of 
Asceticism  ;  the  possible //o/me55  of  Matter  as  well  as  mind. 
Will  any  one  say,  asked  Newman,  that  all  these  principles, 
directly  arising  out  of  the  New  Testament  doctrine  of  the 
Incarnation,  have  not  been  retained  in  vigorous  action  in 
the  Church  at  all  times?  and  he  proceeded  to  answer  the 
question  in  a  series  of  historical  surveys. 

Passing  over  his  discussion  of  the  third  note  of  a  genuine 
development,  we  come  to  the  fourth,  that  of  logical  se- 
quence, with  which  this  review  can  perhaps  best  be  concluded, 
since  the  crux  of  his  argument  lies  here.  If  the  doctrines 
of  modern  Roman  Catholicism  were  logical  sequences  of 
the  teachings  of  Christ  and  the  Apostles,  there  was  nothing 
further  to  be  said ;  it  would  only  remain  for  those  who  re- 
ceived the  New  Testament  to  do  as  Newman  did,  secede  to 
Rome.  In  illustration  of  one  doctrine  leading  to  another, 
he  used  the  instance  of  Baptism.  In  the  primitive  Church, 
the  Sacrament  of  Baptism  was  held  to  convey  inestimable 
benefits  to  the  soul,  its  distinguishing  gift  being  the  plenary 
forgiveness  of  sins  past.  The  Sacrament  was  never  repeated. 
How  then,  since  there  was  but  one  baptism  for  the  remis- 
sion of  sins,  was  the  guilt  of  post-baptismal  sins  to  be 
removed  ?  Or  was  there  no  hope  for  such  sinners  ?  Differ- 
ences of  opinion  arose.  Some  conceived  that  the  Church 
was  empowered  to  grant  one,  and  only  one,  reconciliation  to 
baptized  transgressors.  In  the  West,  idolatry,  murder,  and 
2o 


562       THREE    RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF  OXFORD 

adultery,  if  committed  after  baptism,  were  by  many  held 
unpardonable.  But  as  Christianity  spread,  and  gathered 
converts  of  every  kind,  a  more  merciful  rule  gradually 
obtained.  Penances  were  appointed,  and  by  the  end  of 
the  third  century  as  many  as  four  degrees  of  penance  came 
into  vogue,  through  which  offenders  had  to  pass  in  order  to 
a  reconciliation.  The  length  and  severity  of  the  penance 
varied.  Sometimes,  for  serious  transgressors  it  was  lifelong, 
without  any  remission ;  in  other  cases  it  was  for  a  period 
of  years.  But  the  bishop  always  had  the  power  of  ab- 
breviating and  altering  it. 

The  further  question  arose,  Were  these  punishments 
only  signs  of  repentance,  or  were  they  also  in  any  sense 
satisfactions  for  the  sins  committed?  If  the  former,  then 
it  was  in  the  discretion  of  the  Church  to  remit  them  as  soon 
as  true  contrition  was  discovered.  But  if  they  were  also 
an  expiation  made  to  the  Almighty  Judge,  how  then?  "It 
cannot  be  doubted,"  said  Newman,  "that  the  Fathers  con- 
sidered penance  as  not  a  mere  expression  of  contrition,  but 
as  an  act  done  directly  towards  God  and  a  means  of  avert- 
ing His  anger."  Suppose,  such  being  the  case,  that  death 
intervened  before  the  plena  poenitentia  was  accomplished, 
how  and  when  would  the  residue  be  exacted  ?  According  to 
Bishop  Kaye,  whom  Newman  quoted,  Clement  of  Alexandria 
answered  this  question  very  plainly.  "Clement  distin- 
guishes between  sins  committed  before  and  after  baptism : 
the  former  are  remitted  at  baptism;  the  latter  are  purged 
by  discipline.  .  .  .  The  necessity  of  this  purifying  dis- 
cipline is  such,  that  if  it  does  not  take  place  in  this  life,  it 
must  after  death,  and  is  then  to  be  effected  by  fire,  not  by 
a  destructive,  but  a  discriminating,  fire,  pervading  the  soul 
which   passes   through   it."  ^    After   further   references   to 

1  Clement,  Chap.  12.  We  do  not  recall,  and  have  failed  to  find  in  Clem- 
ent's works,  any  passage  in  support  of  Bishop  Kaye's  statement.  At 
the  end  of  the  24th  chapter  of  the  fourth  book  of  The  Stromata,  Clement 
has  the  following  on  post-baptismal  sin,  but  nothing  suggestive  of  purga- 
tory:     "There  are  two    methods  of    correction,  the    instructive,   and  the 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  563 

early  Church  writers,  Ne^v^nan  concluded :  "  Thus  we  see 
how,  as  time  went  on,  the  doctrine  of  Purgatory  was  brought 
home  to  the  minds  of  the  faithful  as  a  portion  or  form  of 
Penance  due  for  post-baptismal  sin;"  and  again,  "When 
an  answer  had  to  be  made  to  the  question,  how  is  post- 
baptismal  sin  to  be  remitted,  there  was  an  abundance  of 
passages  in  Scripture  to  make  easy  to  the  faith  of  the  inquirer 
the  definitive  decision  of  the  Church." 

We  are  then  carried  on  to  the  doctrine  of  Meritorious 
Works  as  the  corollary  to  that  of  Purgatory.  For  if  post- 
baptismal  sins  were  debts  which  must  be  paid  to  the  utter- 
most farthing,  virtues,  no  less,  passed  to  the  credit  side  of 
the  book  of  life,  and  might  be  drawn  upon  both  for  the  souls 
concerned  and  for  others.  Finally,  Monasticism  was  brought 
forward  as  a  logical  sequence  of  Penance.  The  penitential 
observances  of  individuals  were  necessarily  on  a  larger  scale 
as  the  Christian  community  increased  in  numbers,  and  the 
Church,  divinely  guided,  adopted  the  important  principle 
of  economic  science  that  everything  should  be  turned  to 
account  and  no  waste  allowed :  she  gave  to  penances  the 
form  of  works,  whether  for  her  defense  or  for  the  spiritual 
and  temporal  benefit  of  mankind.  Thus  in  cleansing  their 
souls  from  sin  the  penitent  monks  and  nuns  were  at  the  same 
time  serving  the  Church  and  humanity. 

Traces  of  the  argument  from  the  theory  of  development 
w^ere  found  in  Christian  Apologetics  long  before  Newman 
employed  it  to  wall  up  the  Via  Media.  Petavius  and  Mohler 
had  substantially  shown  him  how  to  use  it ;  Pascal  had 
made  references  to  it,  the  eighteenth  century  divines  had 
dwelt  on  it  to  some  extent,  and  Gibbon's  assault  upon  it 
in  his  history  had  become  famous.  But  what  Darwin  after- 
wards did  for  the  evolutionary  h;^^othesis  in  biology,  in  a 
less  degree  Newman  did  for  it  in  theology.     He  raised  its 

primitive,  which  we  have  called  the  disciplinary.  It  ought  to  be  known, 
then,  that  those  who  fall  into  sin  after  baptism  (Xovrphv)  are  those  who  are 
subjected  to  discipline ;  for  the  deeds  done  before  are  remitted,  and  those 
done  after  are  purged." 


564       THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

importance  for  the  purposes  of  Catholic  defense  and  aggres- 
sion, and  placed  High  Anglicans  in  an  awkward  dilemma. 
The  only  way  of  escape  from  his  inexorable  conclusions 
was  to  reject  his  premises,  which  was  exactly  what  they 
did  not  propose  to  do.  Although  based  on  the  identical 
principle  of  an  external  and  absolute  authority,  Tractarian- 
ism  and  Romanism  were  now  placed  in  powerful  contrast. 
As  a  nominal  Anglican,  Newman  exposed  the  illogical 
nature  and  illegitimate  claims  of  the  fellowship  he  had  al- 
ready inwardly  forsaken.  Those  who  did  not  admit  his 
assumptions,  whether  Anglicans  or  Protestants  in  general, 
were  not  involved  in  their  result.  Once  his  basic  plea  for 
an  inerrant  document,  which  necessitated  an  inerrant  inter- 
preter to  unfold  its  germinal  verities,  was  granted,  the  force  of 
sequence  would  carry  men  all  the  way  with  him.  Deny  him 
this,  or  even  a  part  of  it,  and  the  whole  of  his  cleverly  con- 
structed fabric  fell  asunder.  That  Christian  experience  of  the 
past  was  of  the  essence  of  authority  few,  if  any,  of  his  oppo- 
nents for  a  moment  doubted,  and  revolutionary  iconoclasm  was 
as  repugnant  to  them  as  it  was  to  him.  Yet  such  an  author- 
ity was  not  so  determinate  as  to  exclude  them  from  looking 
toward  the  future  for  light  and  wisdom,  nor  could  it  bring 
every  motion  of  their  minds  under  slavish  subjection  to  the 
past.  Men  must  be  allowed  to  make  trial  of  those  new  ways 
which  are  in  keeping  with  the  promptings  of  Christian  in- 
telligence and  Christian  conscience.  To  make  this  trial  is 
to  incur  the  risks  of  misunderstanding ;  to  refuse  to  make  it 
is  either  to  surrender  religion  altogether,  or  to  relinquish  the 
hope  of  assimilating  the  assured  results  of  knowledge  and 
the  slow  achievements  of  moral  effort.  These  considerations 
point  to  that  kingdom  of  God  within  men  which  Christ 
Himself  proclaimed,  and  they  also  imply  a  divine  and 
ceaseless  revelation  in  the  growing  human  consciousness. 
The  touchstone  that  discriminates  between  the  true  and 
the  false,  the  essential  and  the  accidental,  in  morals 
and  religion,  is  not  the  sole  right  and  property  of  tradi- 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN  565 

tlon,  nor  of  the  Fathers,  nor  even  of  the  Scriptures. 
Objective  authority  in  religion  goes  beyond  these  and  is 
vested  in  the  Person  of  God  and  of  Jesus  Christ,  Whom  He 
has  sent.  In  operation,  this  authority  is  not  a  fixture  of 
chronology,  nor  a  matter  of  antiquity,  but  the  voice  and 
spirit  of  the  Eternal  speaking  through  all  the  media  of  His 
life  in  the  race,  and  not  therefore  separable  from  the  sub- 
jective authority  of  conscience.^  This  reasoning  was  fatal 
to  Newman's  position ;  and  he  would  have  none  of  it,  nor 
would  he  extend  the  idea  of  organic  development  beyond 
the  arbitrary  limits  he  had  assigned  it.  Thus,  although  his 
system  was  the  legitimate  product  of  his  theory,  it  ignored 
some  main  truths  relative  to  God  and  the  creature.  Admis- 
sible in  the  courts  of  rigid  ecclesiasticism,  his  case  broke 
down  in  the  wider  court  of  human  life.  He  was  not  strong 
enough  to  face  doubt  and  then  rise  beyond  it.  In  an  era 
which  plagued  him  with  justifiable  fears  he  could  not  lift 
his  faith  to  those  serene  certainties  which  need  no  confirma- 
tion of  the  reason,  and  in  confusing  dogma  with  faith,  he, 
who  was  perhaps  the  finest  religious  nature  of  the  century, 
failed  the  Church  universal  in  the  hour  of  trial.  Agnos- 
tics saw  in  him  a  superstitious  mind,  accompanied  by 
symptoms  of  admirable  intellectual  clarity  and  depth. 
Ultramontanes  questioned  his  right  to  impugn,  ever  so 
slightly,  the  changelessness  of  the  decrees  of  tradition.  The 
more  liberal  Roman  Catholics  afterwards  rejoiced  iij  his 
Essay  as  the  basis  for  further  modifications  of  dogma  in 
behalf  of  culture.  Tractarians  lamented  his  discharge  of 
what  appeared  to  him  an  unavoidable  duty,  linked,  as  it 
was,  with  the  semblance  of  disloyalty  and  the  wrecking  of 
their  hopes.  In  the  United  States  of  America  the  volume 
was  discussed  by  the  Unitarians,  and  Dr.  Brownson  quoted 
it  as  evidence  that  the  Trinitarian  doctrine  was  not  primi- 
tive but  a  development  of  the  third  century.  The  Roman 
Catholic  bishops  of  the  Republic  declared  that  it  was  half 

'  James  Martineau :   "Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses"  ;   Vol.  I,  p.  248. 


566      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

Catholicism  and  half  infidelity.  It  was  scarcely  surprising, 
remarks  Sir  William  Robertson  Nicoll,  that  after  his  seces- 
sion the  theological  guides  of  the  Papacy  thought  that  New- 
man should  be  a  learner,  not  a  teacher. 

The  mental  and  physical  strain  entailed  upon  him  was  evi- 
denced in  a  letter  of  June,  1835,  which  he  wrote  to  Mr.  William 
Froude :  "  Did  I  tell  you  I  was  preparing  a  book  of  some 
sort  to  advertise  people  how  things  stood  with  me  ?  Never 
has  anything  cost  me  (I  think)  so  much  hard  thought  and 
anxiety,  though  when  I  got  to  the  end  of  my  '  Arians '  thir- 
teen years  ago,  I  had  no  sleep  for  a  week,  and  was  fainting 
away  or  something  like  it  day  after  day,  ...  I  have 
not  written  a  sentence  which  will  stand,  or  hardly  so."  ^ 
As  it  approached  completion  he  stood  at  his  desk  for 
hours,  a  pale,  thin,  nearly  diaphanous  form,  his  face  almost 
transparent,  his  wearied  hand  revising  and  correcting  what 
he  had  put  down.  The  end  of  his  strange,  unearthly  pil- 
grimage from  Calvinistic  Evangelicalism  to  the  shelter  he 
found  in  Rome  was  in  sight.  Father  Dominic,  the  Italian 
Passionist  friar,  was  expected  in  Oxford  on  October  8,  1845; 
and,  although  Newman's  associates  at  Littlemore  did  not 
deny  that  he  would  become  a  Catholic,  they  were  ignorant 
of  his  intentions  in  detail  and  wondered  when  it  would  occur. 
That  afternoon  Dalgairns  and  St.  John  set  out  to  Oxford 
to  meet  the  Passionist  Father,  and  Newman  said  to  Dal- 
gairns in  a  very  low  and  quiet  tone,  "Wlien  you  see  your 
friend,  will  you  tell  him  that  I  wish  him  to  receive  me  into 
the  Church  of  Christ?"  Dalgairns  answered  "Yes,"  and 
no  more.^  The  evening  drew  on  dark  and  stormy,  the  wind 
blew"  in  gusts,  rain  fell  in  torrents;  that  night  Newman 
seceded  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  At  almost  the 
same  time  Renan  arrived  in  Paris,  bade  farewell  to  St.  Sul- 
pice,  put  off  his  clerical   habit,  and    renounced  the  faith 

'Wilfred  Ward:  "Life  of  John  Henry  Cardinal  Newman";  Vol.  I, 
pp.  86-87. 

»76Mi.,  Vol.  I,p.  93. 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN  567 

Newman  accepted ;  an  historical  coincidence  which,  as  Dr. 
William  Barry  has  observed,  "  will  register  its  consequences  for 
a  long  time  to  come."  ^  The  midnight  scene  in  the  little 
chapel  where  Newman  made  his  confession  was  deeply 
impressive :  he  was  so  overcome  that  when  it  was  over  he 
could  not  stand  alone,  and  his  companions  led  him  out  of 
the  tiny  Oratory.  The  final  separation  had  been  before  his 
imagination  continually ;  he  had  reflected  upon  it  with 
such  intensity  and  insistence,  he  had  thought  so  constantly 
of  the  consternation,  the  dismay,  the  sorrow,  it  would 
bring  to  his  Tractarian  associates,  that  when  the  deed  was 
done,  he  had  already  largely  paid  the  penalties  it  exacted. 
The  bitterness  of  his  death  to  Anglicanism  was  past,  the 
future  was  tinged  with  tranquil  hope  and  assurance.  Nor 
did  he  ever  afterwards  regret  what  here  occurred.  His 
proud  imperious  spirit  was  fated  to  endure  many  chasten- 
ings,  yet  in  seasons  of  the  most  humiliating  depression  he  re- 
ferred to  his  second  conversion  with  unshaken  confidence, 
and  with  an  accent  of  conviction  it  would  be  dishonorable 
to  question;  Rome  was  for  him  the  only  safe  anchorage; 
Protestantism  "the  dreariest  of  possible  religions."  He 
never  saw  Oxford  again,  except  at  a  distance,  until  he  re- 
visited the  city  after  an  absence  of  more  than  thirty  years. 
But  in  one  of  the  rooms  of  his  residence  at  Edgbaston  hung 
an  engraving  of  the  place  displaying  the  Radcliffe  dome  with 
its  attendant  spires  and  towers,  and  under  it  was  inscribed 
the  legend  from  the  prophet  Ezekiel,  "  Can  these  bones  live  ?  " 
According  to  Newman,  they  could  not,  save  through  ac- 
ceptance of  his  theological  creed. 

The  English  Church  received  the  news  of  his  departure 
with  mingled  feelings.  Many  openly  rejoiced  that  he  was 
gone,  others  regarded  him  as  an  apostate ;  his  closest  friends, 
although  they  had  expected  his  action,  placed  their  hope 
against  their  fear,  lest  fear  should  become  despair.  Up  to 
this  hour  they  had  met  with  not  a  few  disasters  but  none 

1  "Cardinal  Newman"  ;   p.  64. 


568      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

seemed  irretrievable.  The  more  sanguine  spirits  still 
believed  that  the  prospect  might  change ;  Anglicanism  might 
retain  him ;  the  Movement  might  prosper.  Now  they  were 
undeceived,  and  their  party  overthrown,  "It  was  more 
than  a  defeat,"  said  Dean  Church,  "it  was  a  rout  in  which 
they  were  driven  from  the  field."  Principal  Shairp  spoke 
of  the  event  and  of  the  sentiments  it  evoked  both  in  those 
who  loved  and  those  who  feared  Newman,  in  the  follow- 
ing words.  "How  vividly  comes  back  the  remem- 
brance of  the  aching  blank,  the  awful  pause,  which  fell  on 
Oxford  when  that  voice  had  ceased,  and  we  knew  that  we 
should  hear  it  no  more.  It  was  as  when,  to  one  kneeling  by 
night,  in  the  silence  of  some  vast  cathedral,  the  great  bell 
tolling  solemnly  overhead  has  suddenly  gone  still.  To  many, 
no  doubt,  the  pause  was  not  a  long  continuance.  Soon  they 
began  to  look  this  way  and  that  for  new  teachers,  and  to 
rush  vehemently  to  the  opposite  extremes  of  thought.  But 
there  were  those  who  could  not  so  lightly  forget.  All  the 
more  these  withdrew  into  themselves.  On  Sunday  forenoon 
and  evenings,  in  the  retirement  of  their  rooms,  the  printed 
words  of  those  marvelous  sermons  would  thrill  them  till 
they  wept  abundant  and  most  sweet  tears.  Since  then 
many  voices  of  powerful  teachers  they  may  have  heard,  but 
none  that  ever  penetrated  the  soul  like  his."  ^ 

The  limits  imposed  on  this  volume  prevent  us  from 
discussing  Newman's  after  life,  and  in  view  of  the  recent 
publication  of  his  Biography  by  Wilfred  Ward,  to  do  more 
than  barely  indicate  its  outline  would  be  an  impertinence. 
He  faced  the  critical  years  when  Pius  IX  was  reigning, 
when  Manning  was  omnipotent  in  English  Catholicism,  and 
the  Infallibilists  were  "an  aggressive  and  insolent  faction." 
The  fires  of  the  Vatican  Council,  kindled  on  the  ruins  of 
the  Temporal  Power,  may  have  tested  Newman's  allegiance 
to  the  Papacy,  but  they  did  not  touch  his  Catholicism.     Yet 

1  Wilfred  Ward:  "The  Life  of  John  Henry  Cardinal  Newman";  Vol. 
I,  pp.  77-78. 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN  569 

he  could  not  have  known  what  awaited  him,  or  that  he  would 
become  as  a  discrowned  king,  and  a  forsaken  prophet 
amongst  his  Roman  brethren.  "Had  he  died  directly  after 
his  sixty-third  birthday,"  says  Dr.  Ward,  "at  an  age  which 
would  have  fallen  not  very  far  short  of  the  allotted  days  of 
man  on  earth  —  his  career  would  have  lived  in  history  as 
ending  in  the  saddest  of  failures.  His  unparalleled  emi- 
nence in  1837  would  have  been  contrasted  by  historians  with 
his  utter  insignificance  in  1863.  His  biography  would  have 
been  a  tragedy."  ^  One  of  the  main  reasons  for  the  apathy 
and  even  open  hostility  he  encountered  was  his  curious 
reversion  to  liberalism.  Contrary  to  his  Anglican  prece- 
dents he  stood  increasingly  for  a  broader  policy  and  looked 
with  distrust  and  dislike  upon  the  Syllabus  and  Papal 
Infallibility.  The  very  firmness  of  his  new  foundation 
granted  him  unusual  freedom ;  he  felt  that  he  could  afford 
to  relax  and  incline  toward  the  shades  of  opposition. 
This  determination  was  shown  in  his  ill-timed  effort  to 
impress  upon  the  authorities  the  need  of  his  doctrine 
of  organic  development,  and  by  his  misunderstandings  with 
the  Irish  hierarchy,  the  Roman  episcopate  in  England, 
with  Cardinal  Manning,  and  many  others.  Everything  to 
which  he  set  himself  came  to  grief.  The  finest  mind  of 
the  Catholic  faith  was  consigned  to  a  harshness  of  exile 
which  seemed  to  have  no  chance  of  release.  Accused  by 
Ultramontanes  such  as  W.  G.  Ward  and  Manning  of  luke- 
warmness  toward  the  Holy  See,  Newman  complained  that 
one  who  was  not  extravagant  was  found  treacherous,  and 
that  those  who  frustrated  his  plans  regarded  every  intellec- 
tual man  as  being  on  his  way  to  perdition.  The  fact  was, 
he  had  been  accustomed  to  command,  and  now  felt  it  exceed- 
ingly difficult  to  obey.  To  his  superiors,  at  home  and 
especially  abroad,  he  remained  an  enigma.  Their  knowl- 
edge of  his  antecedents  was  of  the  vaguest,  they  felt  no 
particular  interest  in  his  philosophical  and  theological  spec- 

'  "Life  of  John  Henry  Cardinal  Newman" ;    Vol.  I,  pp.  10-11. 


570       THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

ulations,  they  resented  his  provincial  Oxford  ways,  and  the 
EngUsh  of  which  he  was  a  master  was  an  unknown  tongue 
at  Rome.  He  bore  himself  in  silence  and  outward  submis- 
sion, but  the  ordeal  wore  on  him ;  his  health  declined,  his 
countenance  changed,  he  even  made  ready  for  death.  Then 
in  1864  came  Charles  Kingsley's  headlong,  random  remarks 
concerning  him,  and  Newman,  finding  his  honesty  assailed, 
laid  aside  the  verdict  he  had  previously  passed  upon  himself 
as  "  an  evaporating  mist  of  the  morning, "  and  told  the  world 
the  plain  story  of  his  life  in  the  "Apologia."  Fortunately 
for  his  fame,  he  afterwards  deleted  some  opening  phrases 
of  the  volume,  and  it  went  forth  to  bring  back  to  him  the 
heart  of  England.  "Thenceforth  John  Henry  Newman  was 
a  great  figure  in  the  eyes  of  his  countrymen.  English 
Catholics  were  grateful  to  him  and  proud  of  having  for  their 
champion  one  of  whom  the  country  itself  had  become  sud- 
denly proud  as  a  great  writer  and  a  spiritual  genius.  He  had 
a  large  following  within  the  Catholic  Church,  who  hung  on  his 
words  as  his  Oxford  disciples  had  done  thirty  years  earjier. 
Opposition  in  influential  quarters  continued.  But^is  'sup- 
porters among  the  bishops  stood  their  ground,  and  the 
battle  was  on  far  more  equal  terms  than  before."  ^  True, 
he  did  not  esteem  the  dialectics  with  which  he  could  have 
vanquished  far  abler  controversialists  than  Kingsley,  but  the 
book  revealed  Newman  in  all  his  grandeur  and  his  weakness. 
Those  who  had  long  been  indifferent  or  angry,  turned  to 
him  again,  and  the  generation  that  had  arisen  since  the 
days  of  relentless  war  judged  him  more  justly.  He 
now  lived  under  kindlier  local  skies,  and  once  more  felt  that 
responsive  warmth  of  sympathy  which  was  necessary  to 
his  temperament  and  his  gifts.  In  1878,  Trinity  College 
elected  him  an  honorary  fellow,  and  at  the  same  date  Pio 
Nono,  who  had  long  misconceived  him,  died.  Encouraged 
by  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  and  other  distinguished  Roman 

>  Wilfred  Ward:  "  The  Life  of  John  Henry  Cardinal  Newman  "  ;  Vol.  I, 
p.  n. 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN  571 

Catholic  laymen,  Leo  XIII  elevated  the  noble  Oratorian  to 
the  Cardinalate,  the  distinction  being  the  more  marked  be- 
cause Newman  was  a  simple  priest  and  not  resident  in  Rome. 
The  newly  elected  Pope  thus  placed  the  highest  approval  on 
his  works,  and  forever  disposed  of  suspicions  as  to  his  fidelity. 
Manning,  who  could  never  be  charged  with  subtlety  any 
more  than  could  Newman  with  ambition,  interfered  with  his 
promotion  in  ways  difficult  to  understand  or  to  forgive. 
Their  antipathy  was  primarily  due  to  the  conflict  of  an 
objective  with  a  subjective  mind.  But  if  some  human 
frailty  entered  into  their  relations,  especially  from  Man- 
ning's side,  his  weaknesses  were  redeemed  by  his  phil- 
anthropic labors  in  behalf  of  the  poor  and  oppressed,  in 
which  he  showed  an  instinct  for  true  Christian  democracy 
that  Newman  seldom  felt.  The  venerable  dignitary,  im- 
mured in  the  busy  Midland  city  of  Birmingham,  was  not 
often  visible  elsewhere.  His  honors  came  too  late  to  be 
much  more  than  an  official  vindication  and  a  source  of 
personal  comfort.  He  was  now  a  very  old  man,  and  not 
without  the  misfortunes  and  vapors  of  such  an  age ;  but  as 
one  to  whom  holiness  had  become  a  habit  and  not  a  phrase, 
despite  encircling  gloom,  he  gradually  ascended  the  heights 
which  led  him  up  to  God,  On  rare  occasions  his  speaking 
countenance  and  red  robed  figure  could  be  discerned  in 
the  pulpits  of  his  communion ;  a  figure  on  which  a  fierce 
light  had  beaten,  on  which  there  now  shone  a  more  ethereal 
radiance,  inducing  a  host  of  memories  which  recounted  the 
unsurpassed  dramatic  interest  of  his  career,  and  left  a  sad 
and  solemn  music  in  many  hearts.  In  describing  an  inter- 
view with  him,  in  1884,  James  Russell  Lowell  wrote:  "The 
most  interesting  part  of  my  visit  to  Birmingham  was  a  call 
I  made  by  appointment  on  Cardinal  Newman.  He  was 
benignly  courteous  and  we  excellencied  and  eminenced  each 
other  by  turns.  A  more  gracious  senescence  I  never  saw. 
There  was  no  monumental  pomp,  but  a  serene  decay,  like 
that  of  some  ruined  abbey  in  a  woodland  dell,  consolingly 


572      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

forlorn."  He  died  at  Edgbaston  on  August  11,  1890,  having 
practically  covered  the  century  of  which  he  was  a  foremost 
personality  and  which  he  never  suffered  to  forget  that  the 
things  which  are  seen  are  temporal,  the  things  which  are  not 
seen  are  eternal. 

Epilogue 

The  Tractarians  who  remained  steadfast  after  Newman's 
departure  were  compelled  to  remodel  their  party.  Unde- 
terred by  the  accusations,  invectives  and  taunts  hurled  at 
them  from  all  quarters  they  still  believed  that  Anglicanism 
had  a  Catholic  origin,  and  that  a  synthesis  could  be  effected 
between  traditional  ecclesiasticism  and  the  Established 
Church.  Under  the  guidance  of  Pusey,  Keble,  Mozley, 
and  Marriott  they  gradually  recovered  from  the  shock  of 
Newman's  secession,  and  retained  an  unalterable  love  for 
their  former  associations  with  him.  Nor  could  his  "  Lectures 
on  Catholicism  in  England,"  which  he  considered  his  best 
effort,  and  in  which  he  cast  down  and  derided  the  ideals  he 
had  once  exalted  to  the  skies,  separate  the  hearts  of  his  former 
comrades  from  him.  After  some  years,  the  old  friend- 
ships with  him  and  Keble  were  resumed;  Dean  Church 
became  his  confidant,  at  whose  home  Newman  stayed  when 
he  visited  London,  and  who  probably  knew  more  about 
the  convert's  opinions  and  sentiments  than  any  other  man 
except  Father  Ambrose  St.  John.  When  the  Cardinal  was 
over  eighty  he  traveled  to  Oxford  to  see  in  his  last  illness 
Mark  Pattison,  a  scholar  widely  apart  from  him  and  Pusey 
in  matters  of  belief,  but  one  with  them  in  their  love  for  the 
University  and  for  each  other.  Newman  does  not  seem  to 
have  formed  an  intimacy  with  any  man,  Roman  or  Anglican, 
who  was  not  reared  at  Oxford. 

Yet  these  personal  exchanges  could  not  affect  the  impor- 
tant fact  that  the  Movement  assumed  other  and  very  different 
forms,  some  of  which  fell  behind  and  others  went  beyond 
the  designs  of  its  originators.     The  liberalism  they  hated 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN  573 

and  fought  a  Voutrance  reasserted  itself ;  the  spirit  of  inquiry 
necessary  to  intellectual  research  and  achievement  was  no 
longer  proscribed ;  Oxford  emerged  from  the  backwash  of 
medievalism,  and  resumed  her  true  vocation  as  a  University 
of  unhampered  learning.  Religious  barriers  were  thrown 
down,  credal  tests  were  abolished,  academic  honors  were 
distributed  without  regard  to  Anglican  preferences;  in 
brief,  the  attempt  to  arrest  the  heavens  and  the  earth  in 
behalf  of  clerical  control  and  dictation  ended,  as  it  deserved 
to  end,  in  complete  failure,  Newman  himself,  despite  his 
secession,  received  an  honorary  fellowship  in  Trinity  College, 
and  was  congratulated  upon  the  part  he  had  played  as  a 
Roman  Catholic  doctor  in  rescuing  the  University  from  its 
former  narrowness.^  Viewed  from  this  standpoint,  the 
Movement  was  cut  off  from  its  base  of  supplies  at  Oxford. 
It  could  not  be  recruited  as  a  matter  of  privilege  from  the 
ranks  of  her  professors  and  students.  The  Alma  Mater  which 
had  spurned  Wy cliff e  and  Wesley,  also  subordinated  Anglo- 
Catholicism  to  her  general  purposes. 

While  the  University  was  entering  upon  another  era,  which 
made  Tractarianism  seem  almost  as  remote  as  Scholasticism, 
historical  theology  slowly  undermined  some  basic  teachings 
of  the  sacerdotalists.  They  were  men  of  their  own  time, 
with  their  own  methods,  desperately  opposed  to  those  who 
would  not  concede,  in  the  phrase  of  Abbe  Loisy,  that  the 
past  should  remain  the  present  and  become  the  future.  This 
attitude  exposed  them  to  the  attacks  of  progressive  scholar- 
ship, which  divorced  itself  from  many  of  their  claims.  It 
argued  that  there  could  be  no  greater  fallacy  than  to  identify 
the  medieval  Church  with  any  species  of  Catholicism. 
Rather  it  was  the  parent  stem  of  which  modern  communions 
are  the  branches.  These  afterwards  developed  on  their 
specific  lines,  the  static  and  centripetal  elements  being  found 
in  the  stereotyped  Roman    Church,    the   active   and    cen- 

1  Lord  Bryce,  then  a  professor  at  Oxford,  was  the  toastmaster  who  of- 
fered the  congratulations  to  Newman. 


574      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

trifugal  in  the  various  reformed  Churches.  Neither  branch 
entertained  conceptions  of  liberty  of  conscience,  or  a  critical 
or  scientific  theology.  To  attribute  such  intellectual  virtues 
to  Romans  or  Protestants  of  the  sixteenth  century  did 
violence  to  their  psychology  and  their  history.  Those  who 
understood  the  inner  spirit  and  structure  of  orthodoxy, 
whether  Genevan,  Lutheran,  Anglican,  or  Roman,  ceased 
to  wonder  that  Socinians,  Baptists,  and  Quakers,  the  step- 
children of  the  Reformation,  as  they  have  been  happily 
called,  fared  nearly  as  hardly  as  the  Huguenots  of  France  or 
the  victims  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  Investigations  of 
this  radical  character  are  still  under  way,  and  whatever  else 
they  may  accomplish,  they  will  not  produce  anything  ad- 
vantageous to  Tractarianism  or  its  successors. 

A  far  more  serious  matter  for  them  was  the  impairment 
of  the  theory  of  apostolic  succession  already  mentioned  in 
the  chapters  on  Wesley.  Upon  this  unbroken  ordination 
all  Catholicism  rested  its  case,  and  Newman  boasted  that 
whatever  else  may  happen,  not  a  link  in  the  chain  was  miss- 
ing. His  position  in  this  respect,  whether  as  an  Anglican 
or  a  Romanist,  was  destined  to  be  overthrown  at  the  in- 
stance of  a  great  English  bishop  and  scholar.  John  Barber 
Lightfoot  of  Durham,  Newman's  superior  in  the  massive- 
ness  and  extent  of  his  learning,  showed  that  there  was  no 
threefold  order  in  the  church  of  the  Apostles.  The  Syriac 
Peshito,  the  first  version  into  which  the  New  Testament 
was  translated,  and  the  "Didache,"  most  venerable  of 
Christian  documents  recently  recovered,  verified  Lightfoot's 
argument.  Pusey's  defense  of  the  Anglican  succession  was 
questioned  not  only  by  fellow  Churchmen  but  also  by  New- 
man, who  maintained  that  his  former  colleague  did  not 
affect  to  appeal  to  any  authority  but  his  own  interpretation 
of  the  Fathers.  "There  is,"  he  said,  "a  tradition  of  High 
Church  and  Low  Church,  but  not  what  is  now  justly  called 
Puseyism."  Baptismal  Regeneration,  the  Real  Presence  in 
the  Holy  Communion,  and  other  dogmas  which  derive  their 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN  575 

sacramental  value  from  the  validity  of  Anglican  Orders, 
while  still  believed  and  taught  by  Anglo-Catholics,  must 
eventually  be  affected  by  the  large  variations  already  felt 
at  the  heart  of  their  creed.  Its  advocates  were  driven  by 
the  invidious  nature  of  their  claims  to  unearth  material 
for  the  support  of  foregone  conclusions.  Their  researches 
travestied  the  past,  and  supplied  them  with  no  key  to  the 
processes  of  Christian  thought.  They  stood,  and  still 
stand,  upon  an  imaginary  platform,  "from  which,"  in  the 
language  of  Principal  Tulloch,  "they  proceeded  to  the  con- 
demnation of  everybody  else,  or  the  apotheosis  of  themselves 
as  the  representatives  of  Christian  antiquity." 

Further,  the  publication  of  "Lux  Mundi,"  a  series  of 
essays  by  a  group  of  gifted  High  Churchmen,  which  was 
edited  by  the  present  bishop  of  Oxford,  Dr.  Gore,  frankly 
recognized  that  the  dogma  of  the  inerrancy  of  Holy  Scrip- 
ture was  another  fallen  fortress.  Let  it  be  granted  that 
some  speculative  conclusions  put  forth  by  the  modern  view 
of  the  Bible  are  as  mischievous  as  the  letter-worship  against 
which  they  are  drawn.  Yet  these  aberrations  do  not  make 
a  rational  interpretation  of  Sacred  Writ  the  less  necessary, 
and  if  those  who  are  competent  to  deal  with  such  intricate 
questions  could  be  deprived  of  their  freedom  to  do  so,  the 
last  state  would  be  worse  than  the  first.  The  setting  aside 
of  one  of  Newman's  main  postulates,  the  absolute  infallibility 
of  all  parts  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  was  extremely  adverse 
to  the  authority  of  those  records  of  Jewish  priesthoods,  rit- 
uals, and  sacrifices  which  had  been  a  plentiful  storehouse  for 
the  language  and  customs  of  the  Eucharistic  altar. 

The  second  phase  of  Tractarianism  found  expression  in  its 
modes  of  worship.  Newman's  religious  temper  was  indicated 
in  his  preference  for  Palladian  over  Gothic  architecture.  He 
loved  definition;  the  dim  recessed  spaces,  pillared  gloom, 
half  lights  and  shadows  of  English  cathedrals  did  not  appeal 
to  him.  Neither  he  nor  Pusey  cared  for  a  highly  ornate 
service,    but    Pusey's   disciples   depended    on   its   concrete 


576       THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF  OXFORD 

visible  means  whereby  to  impart  Catholicism  through  sign 
and  symbol  to  the  less  receptive  minds  of  their  flocks.  Here 
the  Movement  fell  into  the  care  of  minor  spirits,  who  were 
charged  with  deflecting  the  adoration  of  the  worshipers 
from  the  proper  objectives  of  faith.  The  use  of  vestments, 
incense,  sacring  bells,  candles,  crucifixes ;  the  genuflexions, 
and  adoration  of  the  Host,  which  constituted  what  has  been 
described  as  the  sacred  dance  around  the  altar ;  the  prac- 
tice of  celibacy  and  of  confession;  the  observance  of  fasts 
and  feasts  and  saints'  days  without  stint,  and  the  homage 
paid  to  the  Virgin  Mary,  created  considerable  excitement 
in  England  and  kept  the  bishops  busy  in  their  efforts  to  sub- 
due a  civil  war  within  the  Church,  preserve  discipline,  and 
adjudicate  the  disputes  of  rebellious  priests  with  their 
parishioners.  Some  Anglicans  looked  upon  these  innova- 
tions as  well-meant  vagaries,  others,  less  complaisant, 
pointed  out  that  they  were  not  only  a  violation  of  the  sim- 
plicity which  is  in  Christ,  but  also  of  the  Apostolic  and 
patristic  Christianity  to  which  the  Tractarians  had  first 
resorted,  and  of  the  Canon  Law  of  the  Church.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  they  reproduced  and  almost  transcended 
the  later  developments  of  Roman  Catholicism.  The 
Anglican  Articles  and  Rubrics  had  enjoined  no  special  type 
of  faith  and  worship :  the  exposition  of  their  doctrinal  and 
liturgical  standard  was  laid  upon  the  conscience  of  the 
clergy  as  enlightened  by  Holy  Scriptures.  But  this  liberty 
was  guarded  by  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  which,  after 
the  Bible  of  1611,  was  the  noblest  heritage  of  the  Church, 
the  finest  example  of  pure  vernacular  English,  the  most 
complete  expression  of  Christian  truth  and  supplication, 
which  recognized  and  included  the  laity  with  the  clergy  in 
their  united  approach  to  God.  Possessed  by  all,  accessible 
to  all,  these  external  guides,  the  Bible  and  the  Prayer  Book, 
sustained  the  Church  in  her  gravest  emergencies,  and,  de- 
spite her  inconsistencies,  helped  to  make  her  one  of  the 
greatest  religious  forces  of  the  world.     Ecclesiastical  parties 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN  577 

had  flourished,  fought,  decHned,  having  this  in  common, 
the  authority  of  the  two  classics  derived  in  their  stated  form 
from  the  Reformation  period.  If  Erastians  had  frequently 
neglected  the  spiritual  economies  of  the  Church  in  behalf  of 
her  political  utility,  they  had  also  saved  her  from  the  fantastic 
inspirations  of  zealots  against  her  unity.  Her  efficiency  as  a 
national  organization  had  not  been  intrusted  to  an  apostolic 
succession,  but  to  the  necessity  and  the  usefulness  of  her  insti- 
tutions. And  her  most  dispassionate  and  weighty  intellects, 
such  as  Hooker,  had  judged  and  approved  her  on  that 
basis.  Now  the  stupidity  against  which  even  the  gods 
contend  in  vain  had  broken  loose,  and  for  the  first  time 
in  Anglicanism  there  was  a  marked  divergence  between  the 
clerical  and  laical  mind. 

A  similar  divergence  had  long  been  felt  in  Latin  Chris- 
tianity, but  the  counteraction  of  Puritanism  had  prevented 
its  leaven  from  spreading  in  England.  Authority  and 
liberty  were  again  at  odds,  and  the  arbitrary  self-exaltation 
of  the  Ritualistic  cult  was  a  heady  wine  for  the  younger 
Tractarians  to  drink.  They  carried  over  the  residue  of 
conservative  reaction  in  the  late  eighteenth  century  into 
another  outbreak  in  the  nineteenth,  which  enthroned  the 
priest  as  the  mediator  of  divine  grace,  and  the  representative 
of  God  to  the  congregation.  This  special  ambassadorship 
was  asserted  in  the  pious  rhetoric  with  which  such  preten- 
sions are  usually  conveyed,  but  no  phraseology  could  make 
them  palatable  to  the  average  Briton.  Prosaic  as  he  ap- 
peared to  be,  he  was  not  deceived  by  it.  Ritualism  re- 
mained a  mere  decoration,  and  its  sensuous  materialism, 
irrational  attitude,  and  reckless  bearing  were  deeply  resented. 
Neither  the  ardor  of  its  advocates,  nor  their  affection  for 
environments  befitting  Christian  worship  could  avert  the 
condemnation  of  the  nation  at  large,  or  make  amends 
for  the  actual  peril  of  priestly  control  and  monopoly  of 
the  Church.  The  opposition  this  peril  encountered  was 
not  always  wise  or  courteous.  Good  men  entangled  in 
2p 


578      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

their  own  fancies  were  caricatured  and  maligned;  accused 
of  wilful  and  mischievous  plottings  against  the  peace  and 
welfare  of  the  communion  for  which  many  of  them  felt  a 
sincere  affection  and  served  at  considerable  cost  to  them- 
selves. But  the  persecutions  which  they  endured  and 
which  advanced  rather  than  retarded  their  cause,  were 
only  the  surplusage  of  a  widespread  and  justifiable  objec- 
tion to  rabid  extremists  who  furnished  abundant  cause  for 
the  adverse  sentiments  with  which  they  were  regarded. 

Presently  they  displayed  contempt  for  Anglicanism,  and 
moderate  High  Churchmen  perceived  that  sacerdotal  par- 
tisans, conscious  of  their  anomalous  standing,  were  willing 
to  dispense  Christianity  only  on  their  own  terms.  The 
extent  of  this  perversity  was  revealed  in  a  recent  occurrence 
at  Oxford,  when  two  Anglo-Catholic  professors  proposed  to 
omit  from  the  theological  degree  the  title  of  "sacred"  and 
to  throw  it  open  to  Buddhists  and  other  non-Christians. 
The  Warden  of  Keble  College  supported  the  motion  and  the 
Regius  Professor  of  Divinity  asserted  that  he  did  not  know 
in  these  days  what  constituted  a  Churchman.^ 

Yet  ritualism  had  a  brighter  side ;  the  slovenliness  of  early 
Victorian  observances  was  abolished,  fabrics  which  had 
fallen  into  disrepair  were  rebuilt,  monuments  of  antiquity  were 
preserved,  abbeys  and  cathedrals  which  had  been  ravaged  by 
previous  "restorations"  assumed  their  original  beauty  and 
became  the  sanctuaries  of  daily  praise  and  supplication. 
And  though  the  ceremonialists  seemed  to  have  little  inclina- 
tion for  missionary  efforts  abroad,  they  adorned  the  superfi- 
cial life  of  their  own  land  with  many  tokens  of  their  devotion. 

The  third  phase  of  Tractarianism,  and  in  many  respects 
the  best,  is  the  present  passion  of  Anglo-Catholics  for  human- 
ity and  for  social  service.  Their  disturbance  of  complacent 
officialism  in  1833  finds  its  sequel  in  the  agitation  for  a 
Christian  democracy  in  1915.     The  bishops,  the  majority 

'  A.  H.  T.  Clarke:  "Collapse  of  the  Catholic  Revival"  ;  The  Nineteenth 
Century  for  October,  1913. 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN  579 

of  whom  are  High  Churchmen,  no  longer  live  in  aristocratic 
aloofness,  surveying  with  indifference  or  contempt  the 
struggle  of  the  people.  They  have  exceeded  the  example  of 
Samuel  Wilberforce  and  enlarged  their  office  by  allying  it 
with  all  classes  in  their  dioceses ;  giving  guidance  and 
succor  to  the  outcast  and  the  helpless  with  a  per- 
sistency and  an  inspiration  drawn  from  a  fresh  vision 
of  Christian  truth  and  Christian  institutions.  Nothing 
more  significant  has  been  accomplished  in  modern  Angli- 
canism. The  rank  and  file  of  the  clergy  have  also  ex- 
perienced a  renewal  of  spiritual  life  which  manifests 
itself  in  these  admirable  ways.  Thousands  of  them 
are  found  ministering  in  obscure  and  depressing  parishes 
of  city  slums  and  rural  regions,  remote  from  notice,  with 
no  desire  for  emoluments  and  benefices.  A  self-denying, 
consecrated  pastoral  force  covers  once  neglected  spots, 
instituting  daily  services,  catechizing  the  children,  consoling 
the  sick  and  bereaved,  and  injecting  into  the  most  brutalized 
and  hopeless  conditions  a  sense  of  eternal  things.  The  work 
of  Father  Stanton  in  Holborn  and  Father  Dolling  in  the 
East  End  of  London  was  typical  of  similar  labors  and  laborers 
throughout  England.  Much  that  is  said  and  done  is  ques- 
tionable, but  notwithstanding  mistakes  and  retrogressions, 
the  war  on  unbelief,  on  godless  wealth,  on  luxury,  on  ease, 
and  on  the  vices  of  drink  and  immorality  goes  steadily  for- 
ward. To  agitate,  to  innovate,  to  succeed,  are  its  mottoes. 
Incensed  by  the  misery  they  have  witnessed,  many  of  these 
men  are  Socialists  of  a  sort,  and  proclaim  against  the  vicious- 
ness  of  the  present  economic  system  with  imsparing  words. 
Even  the  Establishment,  that  sacred  organism  in  behalf  of 
which  Keble  uttered  the  indictment  that  began  the  Oxford 
Movement,  has  been  assailed,  and  Anglo-Catholics  of  the 
pattern  of  the  late  Father  Stanton  are  found  in  the  libera- 
tionists'  camp,  denouncing  the  injustice  and  disgrace  of  an 
alliance  of  Church  and  State  in  terms  which  would  have  sur- 
prised and  charmed  Edward  Miall. 


580      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

Nonconformists  and  Low  Churchmen,  who  for  a  time  stood 
afar  off  and  thanked  Heaven  they  v/ere  not  as  those  Roman- 
izing fanatics,  eventually  imitated  their  zeal  for  the  better- 
ment of  the  nation,  giving  to  it  a  renewed  measure  of  that 
evangelical  effort  they  have  always  and  honoral>ly  bestowed 
on  foreign  territories.  The  great  missions  of  Wesleyan 
Methodism  in  many  cities  and  that  of  Whitefield's  Tabernacle, 
London,  with  which  the  names  of  Hugh  Price  Hughes, 
Samuel  F.  Collier,  F.  L.  Wiseman,  George  Jackson,  J.  Ernest 
Rattenbury,  and  C.  Silvester  Home  are  signally  associated, 
were  organized  and  soon  became  living  agencies  for  religious 
and  social  improvement.  Those  who  have  no  sympathy 
with  the  clerical  pretensions  of  Anglo-Catholics  concede  that 
their  latest  developments  inspire  a  respect  which  has  never 
been  felt  for  their  historical  or  logical  positions.  This  re- 
spect is  intensified  by  their  opposition  to  the  narrowness  of 
that  spurious  liberalism  which  reduces  the  vital  content 
of  the  Gospel  to  a  bloodless  phraseology,  and  views  it  as  an 
ethical  system  shorn  of  any  adequate  religious  dynamic. 
In  such  relations  the  Oxford  Movement  reverted  to  the 
Evangelicalism  from  which,  in  a  measure,  it  originated,  and 
against  which  it  had  set  itself.  The  life  animating  both 
these  historic  parties  was  lodged  beneath  their  deepest 
differences  and  could  not  be  exterminated.  They  unitedly 
repudiated  the  half-hearted  replica  of  the  Christianity  of 
Christ  which  costs  little,  involves  few,  forgets  no  prudences, 
runs  no  hazards,  and  at  last  incurs  reproach  and  decay. 
Thus  the  Oxford  Movement  was  more  than  a  theological 
reform,  and  infinitely  more  than  an  emotional  episode ;  "  it 
was  a  protest  against  the  loose  unreality  of  ordinary  reli- 
gious morality"  and  in  this,  the  summary  of  its  wisest  his- 
torian, is  the  explanation  of  its  value  for  the  universal  Church. 

Newman  was  a  prime  instance  of  the  persistence  of  earlier 
traits  in  an  unfriendly  environment ;  and,  as  we  have  seen, 
other  converts  from  Tractarianism  to  Rome  were,  like  him, 
Evangelicals  by  birth  and  training.     His  strength  and  theirs 


JOHN   HENRY  NEWMAN  581 

lay  in  a  quick  sense  of  the  supernatural,  a  profound 
consciousness  of  religion  as  a  personal  experience,  to  which 
his  genius  gave  a  historic  setting.  God  and  himself  were 
the  only  two,  almost  coordinate  realities,  the  fixed  foci  of  an 
ellipse  around  which  revolved  the  world  with  its  staggering 
burdens,  as  so  much  nebula,  dream-stuff,  phantasmagoria. 
Myself,  my  God,  my  end :  and  all  things  else  mere  means 
to  that  end  —  such  was  Newman's  plea.  The  struggle  to 
maintain  each  member  of  this  system  in  its  due  place,  and 
to  cultivate  their  spiritualities  by  subjecting  the  forces  of 
conquered  egotism  to  their  service  constituted  his  moral 
greatness.  Making  a  serious  account  of  obstacles,  he 
yet  accepted  all  turns  of  affairs,  drawing  them  into  his  main 
current,  and  moving  on  towards  his  goal ;  a  simple,  humane, 
universal  goal ;  the  doing  of  God's  will  on  earth.  Ever  and 
anon  he  relaxed  his  customary  vigilance  and  the  opposition 
of  his  regnant  will  was  revealed.  The  conflict  engraved 
its  traces  on  his  soul,  and  in  all  probability  he  remained 
unsatisfied  to  the  end.  "That  which  won  his  heart  and  his 
enthusiasm,"  said  Dean  Church,  "was  one  thing,  that  which 
justified  itself  to  his  intellect  was  another."  This  striking 
verdict  from  one  who  appraised  him  best,  conducts  us  as 
near  to  the  mystery  of  his  being  as  it  seems  possible  to  get. 
His  ultimate  sense  of  the  life,  the  society,  and  the  principles 
of  action  contained  in  the  Apostolic  fellowship  constrained 
him  to  seek  that  organization  in  which  they  were  most 
completely  embodied.  In  the  search  he  surrounded  himself 
with  distillations  of  all  kinds  and  arguments  orientalized 
to  the  last  degree.  Questions  of  logical  legitimacy  gave  way 
to  the  all-important  issue  of  a  vital  system  of  Christianity. 
The  high  ideal  of  a  Church  which  lived  and  wrought  as 
Christ  and  His  Apostles  had  lived  and  wrought  offered  the 
only  adequate  object  to  his  reason  and  faith  alike.  The 
pursuit  of  that  ideal  engrossed  him  as  it  had  Wycliffe  and 
Wesley ;  the  historian  and  all  else  in  him  were  made  obedient 
to  his  endeavors  to  attain   that  object.     His   first   effort 


582       THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF   OXFORD 

was  a  confessed  mistake.  In  language  which  fulfilled  the 
highest  standards  of  the  writer's  art;  dignity  of  manner, 
persuasiveness,  crystalline  clearness,  fervor  with  restraint, 
he  bared  the  innermost  chambers  of  his  heart  to  the  world's 
gaze,  and  admitted  that  he  had  theorized  wrongly.  In  his 
second  effort  he  theorized  successfully,  but  great  results 
were  denied  him.  He  had  lost  touch  with  the  younger 
generation,  and  could  no  longer  take  account  of  the  form  and 
pressure  of  his  times,  or  remake  the  stock  of  his  conceptions, 
or  cast  aside  the  prepossessions  of  his  life.  Caught  in  the 
toils  of  his  own  personality,  he  settled  nothing  for  the  prob- 
lems of  human  freedom  and  human  thinking.  Behind  him 
lay  a  divided  Anglicanism,  before  him  a  bewildered  and 
apathetic  Romanism.  The  most  loyal  of  Englishmen  and  of 
Oxford's  sons  was  drawn  by  his  sense  of  duty  and  by  the 
logic  of  his  premises  into  "  a  great  cosmopolitan  association 
in  which  England  counted  for  little  and  Oxford  for  nothing  at 
all."  With  dexterity  of  argument  he  tried  to  account  for  the 
indisputable  fact  that  Papal  doctrine  and  discipline  were  in 
many  essential  respects  far  removed  from  the  Church  of 
the  New  Testament.  But  neither  the  Essay  on  Development 
nor  aught  else  could  soothe  his  own  disquietude  ;  his  reason- 
ing and  his  style  were  the  images  of  his  mind  rather  than 
of  his  subject.  Their  elusiveness  gives  rise  to  the  mingled 
admiration  and  doubt  of  which  his  readers  are  aware.  They 
watch  the  manifestations  of  his  intellect  with  the  suspicion 
that  he  engages  it  to  confirm  the  demands  of  his  heart.  These 
distractions  prevented  in  him  the  purest  faith,  and  made  his 
story  a  sad  one  even  to  the  casual  observer.  Although  histori- 
cally he  was  an  Oxonian,  a  Calvinist,  an  Evangelical,  an 
Anglican,  a  Tractarian,  a  Roman  Catholic ;  primarily  he 
was  none  of  these,  but  always  a  Newmanite.  The  rest 
could  assert  themselves  through  his  complex  personality ; 
none  could  diminish  or  overawe  it.  This  invincible  in- 
dividualism, expressed  in  ways  which  outvie  romance  in 
their   interest,    accounted    for   the   strange    fascination   he 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN  583 

exercised  over  disciple  and  opponent.  It  isolated  him,  as 
we  have  seen,  in  the  most  congenial  or  inquisitive  societies 
to  which  he  successively  adhered. 

Hence  few  of  his  official  overseers  understood  him  :  Haw- 
kins, Whately,  the  English  bishops,  the  Roman  hierarchy, 
were  equally  at  fault  in  their  judgments  concerning  him. 
He  was  practically  driven  out  of  Anglicanism,  he  was  snubbed 
and  neglected  by  the  chief  pastors  of  the  Church  of  his  adop- 
tion. In  1860  he  wrote  in  his  Journal:  "I  have  no  friend 
in  Rome :  I  have  labored  in  England,  to  be  misrepresented, 
backbitten  and  scorned.  I  have  labored  in  Ireland,  with  a 
door  ever  shut  in  my  face."  Seven  years  later  he  continued 
—  "  Now,  alas  !  I  fear  that  in  one  sense  the  iron  has  entered 
into  my  soul.  I  mean  that  confidence  in  any  superiors  what- 
ever never  can  blossom  again  within  me.  I  shall,  I  feel, 
always  think  they  will  be  taking  some  advantage  of  me." 
This  was  both  his  misfortune  and  his  fault.  In  the  pithy 
phrase  of  the  London  Spectator:  "as  an  Anglican  he  stood 
for  medieval  principles  in  a  scientific  age;  as  a  Roman  he 
stood  for  a  measure  of  scientific  thought  in  a  Church  com- 
mitted to  medieval  theology."  That  which  Oxford  did  he 
chided  Rome  for  not  doing,  yet  he  had  left  Oxford  because 
she  did  it.  The  liberalism  he  denounced  in  the  one  place, 
he  assumed  in  the  other.  This  may  explain  why  Archbishop 
CuUen  intercepted  the  mitre,  and  Manning  nearly  prevented 
the  scarlet  hat  from  being  bestowed  on  him.  Not  until 
he  was  harmless  was  he  permitted  to  take  his  place  among 
the  Princes  of  the  Church,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  even  Ward's 
biography  contains  the  full  account  of  his  differences  with 
the  Curia,  and  with  the  Roman  Catholic  episcopacy  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 

He  saw  the  defects  of  systems  more  keenly  than  their 
merits,  and  his  sensitiveness  inclined  him  to  despair  of  their 
permanence  or  usefulness.  Because  he  never  shared  the 
delusion  that  England  was  hungering  for  the  true  Church  and 
on  the  verge  of  conversion  to  Catholicism,  he  set  about  re- 


584       THREE   RELIGIOUS   LEADERS   OF  OXFORD 

forming  instead  of  propagating  it  among  his  countrymen. 
Here,  as  elsewhere,  he  was  bound  to  make  his  brain  consent 
to  what  his  heart  approved.  They  cajoled  each  other, 
and  most  conspicuously  in  his  treatment  of  faith,  in  which 
he  reversed  the  usual  order  and  dealt  with  the  essential 
truths  of  religion  as  neither  known  nor  knowable  in  themselves 
but  guaranteed  by  the  sufficient  explanation  they  gave  of 
facts  and  by  their  practical  values  for  human  nature. 
The  rationalistic  conception  of  faith  as  an  intellectual  act 
of  belief  based  on  suflBcient  evidence,  and  the  moral  concep- 
tion of  faith  as  the  carrying  out  by  the  will  of  that  which 
had  been  accepted  by  the  understanding,  Newman  dis- 
allowed ;  the  first  because  it  confounded  faith  with  opinion, 
the  second  because  it  confounded  faith  with  obedience. 
Thus  faith  was  placed  above  the  operations  of  intellect ;  the 
early  Christians,  he  said,  believed  first  and  were  afterwards 
instructed  as  to  what  they  believed.  Glacial  intellect 
construed  the  spiritual  as  though  it  were  the  physical  and 
were  incapable  of  the  love  and  reverence  which  colored  faith. 
To  an  evil  heart  these  were  no  more  than  dark  suspicions, 
and  it  was  prone  to  accept  the  shadows  cast  by  its  own  re- 
flections as  realities.  But  to  a  humble  mind  love  and  rev- 
erence were  clear  trusts,  in  behalf  of  which  reason  ceased 
its  struggle  for  supremacy,  and  cast  in  its  fortunes  with  their 
higher  possibilities.  Such,  according  to  Newman,  was  saving 
faith :  its  judgments  were  intuitive,  immediate,  detached, 
unsystematic,  flashes  in  our  gloomy  depths ;  begotten  in  us, 
not  created  by  us.  His  own  faith  was  an  act  of  will,  vetoing 
reason,  or  perhaps  to  be  more  just  to  him,  a  moral  act  of  the 
reason,  transcending  the  requirements  of  demonstration. 
The  logical  sequence  was,  that  an  authoritative  guardian  of 
faith  became  necessary  as  a  protection  against  skeptical 
desolation.  Hence  faith  for  him  was  a  philosophy,  Chris- 
tianity an  idea,  truth  a  matter  of  impression ;  evidences 
were  presumptions,  hypotheses,  ventures,  rather  than  sub- 
stantiated realities;  conclusions  which  provoked  Fairbairn's 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN  585 

retort  that  Newman  was  an  agnostic  baptized  with  reUgious 
emotion. 

In  all  probability  he  was  the  greatest  apologist  for  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  since  the  days  of  Bossuet.  Neither 
of  them  would  endure  the  reconciliation  of  faith  with  reason ; 
the  one  appealed  to  force,  the  other  to  imagination,  against 
the  process.  But  Newman  succeeded  in  mitigating  the  irra- 
tional resentment  which  had  prevailed  against  the  Papacy 
in  England.  The  silent  force  of  his  example,  even  more  than 
the  eloquence  of  his  writings,  gave  pause  to  those  ardent 
partisans  who  saw  nothing  good  in  Rome. 


The  breach  between  faith  and  knowledge  is  not  healed, 
yet  this  is  not  as  impossible  as  traditionalists  declare.  It  was 
successfully  attempted  by  Clement  and  Origen^  unsuccess- 
fully by  Abailard,  and  actually  accomplished  by  Aquinas. 
Scholasticism  was  formerly  as  strongly  reprobated  by  the 
Curia  as  Modernism  is  now.  The  New  Learning  was  re- 
jected by  the  Council  of  Trent  for  definite  and  interested 
reasons.  Yet  the  New  Learning  has  returned  as  Modern- 
ism to  find  Scholasticism  sanctioned  and  its  own  repre- 
sentative banned.  Surely  it  is  within  the  highest  possi- 
bility that  the  Church  which  gave  Aquinas  to  the  most 
illustrious  services  any  man  could  render  by  the  will  of 
God  to  his  own  generation,  will  produce  from  her  living 
soul  another  great  doctor  who  can  make  the  bounds  of 
lawful  freedom  wider  yet.  The  premature  and  desultory 
efforts  of  Father  Tyrell  in  this  direction  are  not  forever 
forfeited,  and  if  history  is  any  warrant,  it  is  a  safe  prediction 
that  the  things  for  which  he  stood  will  yet  bear  fruit  after 
their  kind  and  in  their  season.  So  far  as  Anglicanism  is 
concerned,  it  was  founded  on  sound  scholarship,  and,  con- 
sidered broadly,  has  never  departed  from  that  basis.  Its 
leaders  have  welcomed  the  pioneers  of  truth  who  were  glad 
to  find  shelter  at  Canterbury  and  Oxford.     Cranmer,  Hooker, 


586      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OF  OXFORD 

Tillotson,  Thirlwall,  Lightfoot,  Westcott,  Hort,  Stubbs,  and 
Creighton,  to  mention  but  a  few  historic  names,  toiled  for 
the  unification  of  learning  and  piety.  That  obscurantism 
has  been  all  too  active  and  mischievous  among  certain 
groups  of  Anglicanism  is  beyond  question.  But  this  should 
not  confuse  the  general  situation.  For  Churchmen  of  every 
stripe,  wherever  found,  have  felt  the  weight  of  these  inquiries 
concerning  past,  present,  and  future.  The  separation  which 
has  disfigured  the  loveliness  of  the  Church  of  England, 
narrowed  and  embittered  Puritanism,  divided  and  weakened 
Christendom,  and  gathered  Protestant  peoples  into  numerous 
sects,  cannot  endure  the  pressure  now  brought  to  bear  upon 
its  misconceptions  and  errors,  nor  is  it  congenital  to  Prot- 
estantism when  the  issues  are  properly  understood  and 
balanced.  This  understanding  and  balancing  enjoy  favor- 
able prospects  because  the  battle  is  no  longer  one  of  prel- 
ates or  divines  in  "  a  vast,  dumb,  listless,  illiterate  world, " 
or  waged  between  a  few  sequestered  university  dons.  It  is 
an  open  contention,  fraught  with  religious  and  moral  conse- 
quences which  embrace  the  honorable  dealings  of  inter- 
nationalism, the  perpetuity  of  a  just  and  universal  peace, 
social  reconstruction,  the  reconciliation  of  various  forms 
of  truth,  the  maintenance  of  essential  spiritualities,  the 
simplification  of  credal  statements;  in  a  word,  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  Kingdom  of  God  upon  earth.  At  this 
moment  the  ferocious  cruelties  of  an  unparalleled  war  are 
driving  home  these  reflections;  a  war  which  has  revealed 
the  indescribable  perils  that  knowledge  and  culture  incur 
when  they  are  separated  from  the  control  of  genuine  religion, 
and  subjected  to  the  dictates  of  hate  and  greed,  and 
to  the  anarchy  of  physical  violence.  In  such  a  crisis, 
the  magnitude  and  horror  of  which  baffle  description,  the 
Christian  Church  must  restore  civilization  to  the  purposes 
from  which  it  has  been  wantonly  deflected.  Whatever 
the  errors,  the  rectifications,  the  risks,  the  losses,  this 
obligation  entails,  Catholic  and   Protestant,  Traditionalist 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN  587 

and  Modernist,  are  bound  to  gird  themselves  for  its  fulfill- 
ment. Had  they  bestowed  the  same  assiduous  care  upon 
the  realities  of  love,  and  mercy,  and  righteousness  which 
has  been  devoted  to  their  respective  peculiarities  of  belief, 
mankind  might  have  escaped  the  sickening  catastrophe  which 
has  overtaken  it.  And  if  the  flamings  of  this  wrath  shall 
purge  the  Church  militant  of  her  dross,  and  through 
suffering  and  deprivation  sanctify  her  for  the  noblest 
ideals  of  her  faith  and  the  sacrifices  necessary  to  attain 
them,  then  even  such  a  vial  of  destruction  as  the  European 
conflict  will  not  have  been  poured  out  in  vain. 


588      THREE   RELIGIOUS  LEADERS  OP  OXFORD 


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Sarolea,  Charles.  Cardinal  Newman  and  his  Influence  on  Reli- 
gious Life  and  Thought. 

Walker,  Williston.     The  Reformation. 

Walsh,  Walter.     The    Secret    History    of    the    Oxford    Movement. 

Ward,  Wilfred.     The  Life  of  John  Henry  Cardinal  Newman. 

Ward,  Wilfred.  Ten  Personal  Studies:  Balfour,  Delane,  Hutton, 
Knowles,  Sidgwick,  Lytton,  Ryder,  Grant  Duff,  Leo  XHI,  Wise- 
man, Newman,  Cardinals  Newman  and  Manning. 

Wedgwood,  Julia.     Nineteenth  Century  Teachers,  and  Other  Essays. 

Whyte,  Alexander.     Newman ;  An  Appreciation. 

A  LIST  OF  CARDINAL  NEWMAN'S  WORKS 

Parochial  and  Plain  Sermons  (8  vols.). 

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Sermons  Preached  upon  Various  Occasions. 

Lectures  on  the  Doctrine  of  Justification. 

An  Essay  on  the  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine. 

On  the  Idea  of  a  University. 

An  Essay  in  aid  of  a  Grammar  of  Assent. 

Two  Essays  on  Biblical  and  on  Ecclesiastical  Miracles. 

Discussions  and  Arguments. 

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INDEX 


Abailard,  29  f.,  51,  111,  585. 

Abbott,  Dr.  E.  A.,  455. 

Acton,  Lord,  141. 

Addison,  Joseph,  244,  247,  268,  367. 

Albertus  Magnus,  53. 

Aldersgate  Street  Society,  334. 

Alexander  II,  7. 

Alexander  III,  10. 

Ailen,  Alexander  V.  G.,  409. 

Almonry  boy,  37. 

American  colonists,  261. 

American  Methodism,  351  ff.,  358  f., 
372. 

Andrewes,  Lancelot,  237,  284. 

Anglican  Church,  301  ff.,  369,  390, 
413,  426  f.,  454,  520  ff.,  529,  549, 
564,  574,  585. 

Anglo-Catholics,  486,  575  ff.,  578, 
580  (see  also  High  Churchmen). 

Annesley,  Dr.  Samuel,  182. 

Anselm,  8,  30,  51. 

Antinomianism,  321. 

Apostles'  Club,  422. 

Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  51,  53  f . ; 
"Summa,"  55  ff. ;  "Angelic  Doc- 
tor," 55 ;  constructive  philosopher, 
56,  585. 

Aristotle,  53  ff.,  366. 

Arnold  of  Brescia,  111. 

Arnold,  Dr.  Thomas,  403,  417,  482, 
514,  516,  529,  536. 

Arundel,  Archbishop  Thomas,  44, 168. 

Asbury,  Bishop  Francis,  353  ff.,  358. 

Avignon,  23,  108. 

Bacon,  Sir  Francis,  276. 
Bacon,  Roger,  16,  29,  59,  99. 
Bagehot,  Walter,  468. 
Balliol  College,  35,  37. 
Barry,  Dr.  William,  431,  567. 
Basil  the  Great,  91. 
Becket,  Thomas  k,  9  ff.,  15. 
Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  319. 
Benedictines,  40. 
Benson,  Joseph,  321. 
Bentham,  Jeremy,  400. 


Berridge,  John,  324. 

Bible  translations,  144  ff. 

Biblical  criticism,  420  f.,  575. 

Birrell,  Augustine,  366,  543. 

Black  Death,  94,  104,  133  ff. 

Black  Prince,  The,  128  ff. 

Blair,  Hugh,  279. 

Boardman,  Richard,  351. 

Bohler,  Peter,  224,  313,  316,  340. 

Bolingbroke,  276. 

Boniface  VIII,  22,  65,  107,  217. 

Boswell,  James,  269. 

Bossuet,  J.  B.,  277,  585. 

Bracton,  Henry  de,  19. 

Bradwardine,  Thomas,  "Doctor  Pro- 
fundis,"  45,  62  f. 

Bray,  Dr.  Thomas,  273. 

British  Association  for  Advance- 
ment of  Science,  410. 

Broad  Churchmen,  417,  520. 

Browning,  Robert,  471. 

Bryce,  Lord,  573. 

Buckley,  Dr.  J.  M.,  362. 

Bunsen,  Chevalier,  548. 

Burgon,  Dean,  531. 

Burke,  Edmund,  264,  393. 

Burnett,  Bishop,  283. 

Burns,  Robert,  265  f. 

Bury,  Richard  de,  76,  79. 

Bushnell,  Horace,  319. 

Butler,  Bishop  Joseph,  278,  281  f., 
302,  405. 

Byron,  Lord,  395. 

Calvin,  John,  416. 
Calvinism,  315  ff.,  420,  453. 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  402,  411  ff.,  420. 
Cathari,  The,  105. 
Catherine  of  Sienna,  109  f. 
Cennick,  John,  326. 
Charles  the  Great  (Charlemagne),  29. 
Charles  V  (Emperor),  155. 
Chaucer,  42,  101,  137,  146,  160,  165. 
Chesterfield,  Lord,  247. 
ChilHngworth,  William,  279. 
Christian  Year,  The,  468. 


591 


592 


INDEX 


Church,  Conceptions  of  the,  520  ff. ; 

endowments  of,  69. 
Church    of    England    (see    Anghcan 

Church). 
Church,  Dean  R.  W.,  414,  430,  460, 

483,  540,  545,  572. 
Clapham  sect,  417,  459. 
Clapton  sect,  417. 
Clarendon,  Council  of,  9. 
Clarke,  Dr.  Adam,  342,  369. 
Class  meeting,  287,  335  ff. 
Clement  V,  73,  95,  108  f. 
Clement  VII,  153. 
Clergy,  cloistered  and  secular,  48. 
Clough,  Arthur  Hugh,  471. 
Cobbett,  William,  395. 
Coke,  Thomas,  357,  370  f . 
Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  227,  236, 

417  ff.,  474. 
College,  meaning  of  word,  33. 
Comenius,  John  Amos,  208. 
Constance,  Council  of,  116,  155,  169. 
Copeland,  William  John,  533. 
Corporation  Act,  396. 
Courtenay,  William,  86  ff.,  160. 
Cowper,  William,  266. 
Creighton,  Bishop  Mandell,  83, 91, 159. 
Crusades,  xiv. 
Curnock,  Nehemiah,  215. 

Dante,  110;   "Convito,"  155. 
Darwin,  Charles,  410,  563. 
David,  Christian,  288. 
"  De  Causa  Dei,"  63. 
"Defensor  Pacis,"  68. 
Deism,  265,  276  f. 
Dissenters  (see  Nonconformists). 
Divine  Right,  doctrine  of,  283. 
Dolling,  Father,  579. 
Dominic,  Father,  566. 
Dominicans,  24,  97. 
Dryden,  John,  266. 

Earthquake  Council,  The,  142. 
Edward  I,  xv,  21  ff. 
Edward  II,  23. 
Edward  III,  70  ff. 
Edward  VI,  428. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  287,  317  f.,  374. 
Eliot,  George,  471. 
Embury,  Philip,  351. 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  317. 
England,  social  condition  of,  in  eight- 
eenth   century,    240    ff.,    282    ff. ; 


expansion  of,  261 ;    in  nineteenth 

century,  392  ff. 
English  State  Church  (see  Anglican 

Church). 
Epworth,  183. 

Erastianism,  117,  521,  534,  577. 
Erigena,  Scotus,  51. 
Eucharist,  119  ff. 
Evangelicalism,  427. 
Evangelicals,  414  ff.,  517,  521,  524, 

537,  580. 
Evangelical  Revival,  258,  265,  281, 

415. 

Fairbairn,  Principal  A.  M.,  55. 
Faith  and  reason,  584. 
Fetter  Lane  Society,  313. 
Feudalism,  xiv,  140. 
Fielding,  Henry,  268. 
Fiske,  John,  45. 
Fitzralph,  Richard,  45,  64. 
Fleming,  Richard,  155,  197. 
Fletcher  of  Madeley,  321  ff.,  358. 
Foundery,  The,  314. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  96  ff. 
Franciscans,  24,  64,  70,  91,  96  ff. 
Fraticelli,  The,  99  ff. 
Frederick  II,  106. 
French  Revolution,  428. 
Friars  and  monks,  90  f.,  100  ff. 
Froissart,  James,  129. 
Froude,  James  Anthony,  452,  461. 
Froude,   Richard  Hurrell,   390,  453, 
459  ff.,  490,  498  f. 

Garnier,  Arnold,  72. 

Garrick,  David,  246  f . 

Gasquet,  Cardinal,  134  ff.,  148  ff. 

Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  159. 

German  pietism,  287. 

Gerson,  John,  93,  106,  159. 

Gibbon,  Edward,  269,  555. 

Gibson,  Bishop,  289,  303. 

Gilbert,  John,  73. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  488,  518,  649. 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  266. 

Gorham  judgment,  531. 

Gray,  Thomas,  266. 

Great  Schism,  104,  109. 

Great  Slaughter,  38. 

Gregory  VII  (Hildebrand) ,  6  ff.,  57. 

Gregory  IX,  31,  106. 

Gregory  XI,  73,  88,  110,  138. 

Grimshaw,  William,  324. 


moEx 


593 


Grosseteste,  Richard,  xv ;  Chancel- 
lor of  Oxford  University  and  bishop 
of  Lincoln,  15  ff. ;  the  "  Sharp 
Epistle,"  18  f. 

Guier,  Philip,  333. 

Hampden  controversy,  534  ff. 

Hare,  Julius  Charles,  417,  423. 

Harnack,  Adolf,  51,  145. 

Harris,  Howell,  287,  320. 

Hawkins,  Dr.  Edward,  482  ff. 

Hazlitt,  William,  395. 

Hebdomadal  Council,  542,  551. 

Heck,  Barbara,  351. 

Henry  I,  28. 

Henry  II,  9  f. 

Henry  III,  20. 

Henry  IV,  60,  168. 

Henry  VII,  127. 

Henry  VIII,  428,  517,  519. 

Hereford,  Nicholas,  168. 

High  Churchmen,  413,  426,  430,  534, 

575  ff.  (see  also  Anglo-Catholics). 
Higher  criticism,  421. 
Hildebrand  (Gregory  VII),  6  ff.,  17, 

57,  HI. 
Hill,  Rowland,  322. 
History,  Study  of,  xi,  xiii,  78. 
Hobbes,  Thomas,  276. 
Hogarth,  250,  253,  255. 
Holy  Roman  Empire,  106  f. 
Honorius  III,  97. 
Hooker,  Richard,  237,  520,  577. 
Hopkey,  Miss  Sophy,  217  ff. 
Home,  George,  305. 
Humanism,  xiv. 
Hume,  David,  241,  268,  405. 
Humphreys,  Joseph,  326. 
Huntingdon,  Lady,  292,  321. 
Hus,  John,  60,  149,  169. 
Hutton,  R.  H.,  269,  503. 
Hutton,  W.  H.,  15. 
Hymns  of  Methodism,  347. 

Innocent  III,  xv,  11  ff.,  17,  30,  96. 
Innocent  IV,  18,  106. 
Inquisition,  60. 
Interdict  on  England,  16. 
Ireland,  The  eternal  problem  of,  395. 
Irish    Church,    Disestablishment   of, 
507  f. 

James,  William,  350. 
Jerome  of  Prague,  169. 
2q 


Jerusalem  bishopric,  548. 

Jessopp,  Augustus,  97  f. 

John,  king  of  England,  11  ff. 

John  XXII  (pope),  57,  65. 

John  XXIII  (pope),  149. 

John  of  Gaunt,  71  ff.,  87,  113,  123, 

129,  131  ff.,  139. 
John  Street  Church,  351. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  269,  276,  348,  374. 
Jones,  Griffith,  273. 

Kant,  Ethic  of,  405,  418. 

Keble,  John,  390  f. ;  first  meeting 
with  Newman,  448 ;  real  founder 
of  Oxford  Movement,  463  ff. ; 
"The  Christian  Year,"  468;  Ox- 
ford Assize  Sermon,  510  ff. 

Keble,  Thomas,  533. 

Kempis,  Thomas  k,  193,  442,  464. 

Kingsley,  Charles,  570. 

Knights  Templars,  95  f. 

Knox,  John,  416. 

Langham,  Archbishop,  44. 

Langland,  WilUam,  102,  135,  160. 

Langton,  Stephen,  12,  15  f. 

Lavington,  George,  304. 

Law,  William,  199,  287,  444,  464. 

Lay  investiture,  controversy  on,  11. 

Lay  preachers,  326  ff.,  337. 

Lea,  Dr.  H.  C,  93. 

Lechler,    G.  V.,    25,    61   ff.,    78,    87. 

121  ff. 
Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  240. 
Leo  XIII,  555,  571. 
Lessing,  G.  E.,  406. 
Liberty,  169  f. 

Liddon,  Canon  H.  P.,  469,  487. 
Lightfoot,  Bishop  J.  B.,  361,  574. 
Lloyd,  Dr.  Charles,  426. 
Locke,  John,  274. 
Lollards,  168. 
Loofs,  F.,  274. 
Lowell,  James  Russell,  571. 
Low  Churchmen,  414,  430,  524. 
Luther,  Martin,  141,  169,  225,  416. 
"Lux  Mundi,"  575. 
LyeU,  Sir  Charles,  410. 

Macaulay,  Lord,  302,  366,  417. 

Magna  Charta,  17. 

Magnus,  Albertus,  51. 

Manning,  Cardinal,  487,  531  ff.,  568  f. 

Marriott,  Charles,  531  f. 


594 


INDEX 


Marsiglio,  58;    herald  of  democracy, 

60  f.,  79  ff.,  106. 
Marsilius  of  Padua,  58. 
Martineau,  Dr.  James,  350,  399,  403, 

437. 
Mather,  Alexander,  309. 
Maurice,  F.  D.,  417,  524. 
Maxfield,  Thomas,  326,  344. 
McGiffert,  A.  C,  407,  478. 
Medievalism,  3  f.,  41  ff. 
Merton,  Walter  de,  33  f.,  36. 
Merton  College,  35. 
Methodism,   99 ;    name,   203 ;    inner 

history  and  theology,   346  f. ;    an 

army,    367    (see,   also,   John    Wes- 

ley). 
Mill,  James,  400. 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  400  fif. 
Milman,  Dean  H.  H.,  421. 
Milton,  John,  157,  242,  460. 
Molther,  Philip,  313. 
Monasticism,  40,  91  ff. 
Monks  and  friars,  90  f.,  100  ff. 
Montfort,  Simon  de,  19. 
Montgomery,  James,  349. 
Moravian  Church,  208,  288,  313  ff., 

338. 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  150. 
Morley,  Lord,  404,  435. 
Mozley,  Dr.  James  B.,  466,  487,  532. 
Mozley,  Thomas,  532. 

Napoleon  I,  258,  292. 

Nelson,  John,  296. 

Neo-Anglicans,  522. 

New  England  theology,  319. 

New  Learning,  39. 

Newman,  Frances  William,  438. 

Newman,  John  Henry,  vii,  xv,  235, 
302 ;  transcendent  personality, 
309 ;  father  and  mother,  436 ; 
conversion,  440  ;  at  Oxford,  441  ff. ; 
example  of  transmitted  influence, 
446;  fellow  of  Oriel,  448;  or- 
dained June  13,  1824,  451 ;  curate 
of  St.  Clement's  church,  451  ; 
public  tutor  at  Oriel,  459 ;  friend- 
ship with  Hurrell  Froude,  459  ff. ; 
serious  illness,  473  ;  study  of  the 
Fathers,  479  ff. ;  St.  Mary's  Ox- 
ford, 483 ;  dismissed  from  Oriel, 
484;  "The  Arians  of  the  Fourth 
Century,"  485;  "Parochial  and 
Plain  Sermons,"  487  ff. ;  traveling 


in  Southern  Europe,  491  ff. ;  con- 
versations with  Dr.  Wiseman, 
497  ff. ;  "  Lead,  Kindly  Light,"  and 
poetry,  503  ;  origin  of  Tractarian- 
ism,  431,  510;  "Tracts  for  the 
Times,"  513  ff. ;  sermons  at  St. 
Mary's,  524 ;  Hampden  contro- 
versy, 524  ff. ;  limitations,  538 ; 
Tract  Ninety,  538  ff. ;  Episcopal 
assault  upon  Newmanism,  543 ; 
Jerusalem  bishopric,  548 ;  re- 
signed St.  Mary's,  552;  "Essay 
on  the  Development  of  Christian 
Doctrine,"  410,  553 ;  secession, 
566;  "Apologia,"  446,  570;  honor- 
ary fellow  of  Trinity  College,  570; 
Cardinal,  571;  died  August  11, 
1890,  672;  "Lectures  on  Catholi- 
cism in  England,"  572 ;  a  misun- 
derstood man,  580  ff. ;  greatest 
apologist  for  Rome,  585. 

Nicholas  IV,  36. 

Nicoll,  Sir  W.  Robertson,  566. 

Noetics,  425,  458. 

Nominalists,  52  ff. 

Nonconformists,  396,  520,  536. 

Norfolk,  Duke  of,  248. 

Ockham,  William  of,  the  "Invin- 
cible Doctor,"  51,  57  f.,  61,  70. 

O'Connell,  Daniel,  396. 

Oglethorpe,  General,  206. 

Ordination,  Controversy  on,  360  f . 

Orthodoxy,  574. 

Overton,  Canon  J.  H.,  360  ff. 

Oxford  University,  27  ff.,  30  ff.,  34  ff., 
41  ff.,  48,  90,  377,  394. 

Paley,  William,  405. 

Palmer,  WUliam,  516,  530,  547. 

Papacy,   The,   9,    14,   23,   70,   73   ff., 

88  ff.,  106  ff..  Ill,  116. 
Paris,  Matthew,  15. 
Paris,  University  of,  29  ff.,  44. 
Parochial  priesthood,  105. 
Pascal,  Blaise,  282. 
Pattison,   Mark,  240,  275,  282,  455, 

572. 
Peasants'  Revolt,  138  ff. 
Peel,  397. 
Penance,  562. 
Perronet,  Vincent,  323. 
Peter  of  Wakefield,  13. 
Philip  the  Fair,  65,  96,  107. 


INDEX 


595 


Philip  Augustus,  30. 
Pilmoor,  Joseph,  351. 
Pitt,  William,  xv,  248,  264,  397. 
Pius  IX,  568. 
Portionist,  37. 
Predestination,  315. 
Premillenarianism,  416. 
Protestantism,  170,  523,  540,  555,  586. 
Purgatory,  562  f. 
Puritanism,  242,  285,  577. 
Purvey,  147  ff.,  168. 
Pusey,    Edward   Bouverie,  451,  487, 
521,  525  ff.,  550,  574  f. 

Rankin,  Thomas,  356. 

Rashdall,  Hastings,  41,  52,  55  ff.,  57. 

Rationalism,  274  ff. 

Realists,  52  ff.,  61. 

Reason  and  understanding,  418  f. 

Reform  Bill,  397. 

Reformation,  origin  of,  115. 

Reginald,  Sub-prior,  11  f. 

Renan,  Ernest,  566. 

Renaissance,  111. 

Rich,  Edmund,  15,  40. 

Richard  II,  89,  131. 

"  Richard  Carvel,"  356. 

Richardson,  Samuel,  268. 

Ritualism,  577  ff. 

Robertson,  A.,  59. 

Rogers,  Thorold,  93,  271. 

RoUe,  Richard,  146. 

Roman  CathoUc  Church,  498,   538, 

560  ff.,  573. 
Romanticism,  476. 
Rome,  496. 

Romilly,  Sir  Samuel,  252. 
Rose,  Hugh  James,  461,  512  f.,  529. 
Rosebery,  Lord,  258. 
Rousseau,  J.  J.,  266. 
Routh,  Dr.  Martin,  459. 
Royal  Society,  276. 
Ruskin,  John,  37. 

SchelUng,  F.  W.  J.,  418. 
Schleiermacher,  F.  E.,  406  ff.,  418, 

420,  470. 
Scholasticism,  50  ff.,  585. 
Scott,  Thomas,  443,  456. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  243,  265  f.,  477. 
Scotus,  John  Duns,  51,  55;   "Doctor 

Subtilis,"  56,  58. 
Shairp,  Principal,  568. 
SheUey,  P.  B.,  395. 


Shoreham,  William  of,  146. 

Sidgwick,  Henry,  241. 

Smith,  Sydney,  374,  416. 

Smollett,  Tobias,  268. 

Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 

Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts,  287. 
Society     for     Promoting     Christian 

Knowledge,  273,  287. 
Southey,  Robert,  332  ff. 
South  Sea  Bubble,  246,  262. 
Speculation,  rehgious,  391. 
Spencer,  Henry,  53. 
Stanley,  Dean  H.  P.,  417,  421,  455. 
Stanton,  Father,  579. 
Statute  of  Provisors,  74  ff. 
Steele,  Richard,  268. 
Stephen  (King),  9. 
Stephen,  Sir  James,  319,  536. 
Stephen,   Sir   Leslie,   230,   278,   301, 

373,  415. 
Sterne,  Laurence,  268. 
Stilhngfleet,  Bishop  Edward,  276. 
Stubbs,  Bishop  William,  12. 
Sudbury,  Archbishop,  142. 
Sunday  schools.  Origin  of,  273. 
Swift,  Dean,  267.  270. 
Sylvester  II  (Pope),  29. 

Tait,  Archbishop,  528. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  193,  237. 

Tennyson,  Lord  Alfred,  471. 

Test  Act,  396. 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  243. 

Thiriwall,  Bishop  Connop,  423  f.,  529. 

Thorpe,  Wilham,  168. 

Tolerance,  159. 

Toleration,  Act  of,  283. 

Toplady,  Augustus,  322,  349. 

Tractarians,  346,  404,  431,  475,  528  ff. 

Tractarianism,    391,    414,    425,    430, 

510,  517,  534,  544,  574  ff. 
"Tracts  for  the  Times,"  513  ff.,  521. 
Transubstantiation,  117  ff.,  142  f. 
Trevelyan,  Sir  G.  M.,  60,  130. 
Tulloch,  Principal  John,  575. 
Tyndale,  William,  150. 
Tyrrell,  Father  George,  585. 

Unitarianism,  317,  319. 
University,  meaning  of  word,  36. 
Urban  II,  9. 
Urban  V,  44,  70. 
Urban  VI,  115,  153. 
Utilitarianism,  399  ff. 


596 


INDEX 


Vacarius,  32. 
Vasey,  Thomas,  358. 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  247,  262. 

Walsh,  Thomas,  309,  332. 

Walsingham,  Thomas,  92. 

Warburton,  Bishop  William,  290, 305. 

Ward,  Dr.  WUfred,  551,  568. 

Ward,  W.  G.,  544  ff.,  551. 

Warton,  Joseph,  146. 

Washington,  George,  262. 

Wat  Tyler,  139. 

Watchnight  service,  335. 

Watkinson,  Dr.  W.  L.,  371. 

Watts,  Isaac,  347. 

Wedgwood,  Julia,  239. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  396. 

Wesley,  Charles,  200,  216,  320,  327, 
347  ff.,  358,  360,  364. 

Wesley,  John,  vii,  xv ;  prophet  of 
divine  realities,  179 ;  birth  and 
early  training,  179  ff. ;  Charter- 
house, 188;  Christ  Church,  190; 
deacon  and  priest,  195 ;  fellow  of 
Lincoln  College,  195,  201  ;  curate 
at  Wroote,  198 ;  Holy  Club,  201 
"Methodist,"  203;  with  the  Mo- 
ravians, 208  ff. ;  Savannah,  215  ff. 
Miss  Hopkey,  217  ff. ;  conversion 
231  ff.,  381 ;  heart  of  his  message 
235;  Journal,  270,  365;  Herrn- 
hut,  288 ;  excluded  from  Anglican 
pulpits,  290 ;  field  and  itinerant 
preaching,  293  ff. ;  "Earnest  Ap- 
peal," 294;  preaching,  appearance, 
and  manner,  296  f. ;  Bristol,  299  ; 
persecution  and  opposition,  301  ff. ; 
first  Methodist  Society  at  the 
Foundery,  314;  Fetter  Lane,  314; 
dispute  with  Whitefield,  315 ; 
London  Conference  in  1770,  321  ; 
lay  preachers,  326  ff. ;  "Notes  on 
the  New  Testament,"  330  ;  organ- 
izer, 334  ;  "Treatise  on  Baptism," 
339 ;  Christian  perfection  and 
assurance,  341  ff. ;  hymn  transla- 
tions, 349  ;  Methodism  in  Colonies, 
351 ;  ordained  Coke  for  America, 
358;  Deed  of  Declaration,  362; 
honored  in  old  age,  363  ;  letter  to 
Wilberforce,  364;  death,  365; 
character  and  influence,  366  ff. ; 
literary  labors,  377  f. 


Wesley,  Samuel,  184, 187, 193, 196, 203. 

Wesley,  Susannah,  182  ff.,  193,  195, 
327. 

Westcott,  Bishop  B.  F.,  150,  417. 

Westley,  John,  180. 

Whatcoat,  Richard,  358. 

Whateley,  Richard,  425,  449  ff.,  456, 
529. 

White,  Blanco,  457. 

White,  Dr.  John,  181. 

Whitefield,  George,  201,  222,  290  ff., 
315,  364. 

Whitgift,  Archbishop,  453. 

Whyte,  Dr.  Alexander,  489. 

Wilberforce,  Robert  Isaac,  530  f. 

Wilberforce,  Samuel,  579. 

Wilhams,  Isaac,  516,  532,  550. 

Wiseman,  Cardinal,  497  ff.,  539. 

Wordsworth,  William,  266,  411. 

Workman,  Dr.  H.  B.,  25,  45,  53,  61, 
73,  104,  206,  341. 

Wycliffe,  John,  originator  of  Euro- 
pean Protestantism,  vii ;  early 
environment  and  training,  21  ff. ; 
Oxford,  27 ;  moral  and  spiritual 
exhaustion  of  the  times,  36  ;  Mas- 
ter of  Balliol,  43 ;  Doctor  of  Di- 
vinity, 44  ;  Schoolman,  50,  70,  122  ; 
realist,  60  f . ;  poUtical  and  anti- 
papal  pamphlets,  68  ff. ;  rector  of 
Lutterworth,  72  ;  literary  activity, 
76 ;  on  church  endowments,  67  f., 
85 ;  a  typical  Englishman,  83 ; 
quarrels  with  Papacy,  84  f.,  114; 
ecclesiastical  trials,  86,  89 ;  five 
bulls  against  him,  88  ;  evangelical 
poverty,  88 ;  polemic  against 
friars  and  monks,  90  f.,  101  ff. ; 
faulty  logic,  103  ;  against  sacerdo- 
taUsm,  104  ;  ecclesiastical  protest- 
antism, 112;  doctrine  of  the 
Church,  116;  condemned  by  Uni- 
versity Council,  123 ;  exiled  from 
Oxford,  143  ;  translating  the  Scrip- 
tures, 143  ff. ;  "Doctor  Evangeli- 
cus,"  144;  order  of  poor  priests, 
151  ff. ;  "Trialogus,"  "Opus  Evan- 
gelicum,"  "Cruciata,"  152  ff. ; 
smitten  by  paralysis  and  d«ath, 
154  f. ;    character,  156  f. 

Wykeham,  WiUiam,  34,  36,  85. 

Zinzendorf,  208  f.,  224  f.,  288. 


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